The City Of God, Volume 1

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THE WORKS

OF

AURELIUS AUGUSTINE

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BISHOP OF HlPPO.-sfc v , ^

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A NEW TRANSLATION.

CEUittV bp tl)t

EEY. MARCUS DODS, M.A.

VOL. I.

THE CITY OF GOD,

VOLUME I.

EDINBURGH: ^ ;

T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.v

, MDCCCLXXL

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PRINTED BY MURRAY AND GIBB,

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T. & T. CLAKK, EDINBURGH.

LONDON, .
DUBLIN, .
NEW YORK,

HAMILTON, ADAM8, AND CO.
JOHN ROBERTSON AND CO.

C. SCRIBNER AND CO.

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THE

ITY OF GOD.

Crantflatcti by

REV. MARCUS DODS, M.A.

VOLUME I.

T.

EDINBURGH:

& T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.

MDCCCLXXL

. T 7;

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Of the following Work, Books IV. XVII. and XVIII. have been translated
by the Rev. George Wiison, Glenluce ; Books V. VI. VII. and VIII. by
the Rev. J. J. Smith.

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CONTENTS.

BOOK I.

Augustine censures the pagans, who attributed the calamities of the
world, and especially the sack of Rome by the Goths, to the Chris-
tian religion and its prohibition of the worship of the gods, .

BOOK II.

A review of the calamities suffered by the Romans before the time of
Christ, showing that their gods had plunged them into corruption
and vice,

BOOK III.

The external calamities of Rome,

BOOK IV.

That empire was given to Rome not by the gods, but by the One True
God,

BOOK V.

Of fate, freewill, and God’s prescience, and of the source of the virtues
of the ancient Romans,

BOOK VI.

Of Varro’s threefold division of theology, and of the inability of the
gods to contribute anything to the happiness of the future life,

BOOK VII.

Of the “select gods” of the civil theology, and that eternal life is not
obtained by worshipping them,

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PAGE

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48

91

135

17 7

228

258

VI

CONTENTS.

BOOK VIII.

PA OX

Some account of the Socratic and Platonic philosophy, and a refuta-
tion of the doctrine of Apuleius that the demons should be wor-
shipped as mediators between gods and men, .... 305

BOOK IX.

Of those who allege a distinction among demons, some being good and

others evil, 353

BOOK X.

Porphyry’s doctrine of redemption, 382

BOOK XI.

Augustine passes to the second part of the work, in which the origin,
progress, and destinies of the earthly and heavenly cities are dis-
cussed.— Speculations regarding the creation of the world, . 436

BOOK XII.

Of the creation of angels and men, and of the origin of evil, 481

BOOK XIII.

That death is penal, and had its origin in Adam's sin, 521

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EDITOR’S PREFACE.

“ T) OME having been stormed and sacked by the Goths
JLV under Alaric their king,1 the worshippers of false
gods, or pagans, as we commonly call them, made an attempt
to attribute this calamity to the Christian religion, and began
to blaspheme the true God with even more than their wonted
bitterness and acerbity. It was this which kindled my zeal
for the house of God, and prompted me to undertake the
defence of the city of God against the charges and misre-
presentations of its assailants. This work was in my hands
for several years, owing to the interruptions occasioned by
many other affairs which had a prior claim on my attention,
and which I could not defer. However, this great undertak-
ing was at last completed in twenty-two books. Of these,
the first five refute those who fancy that the polytheistic
worship is necessary in order to secure worldly prosperity,
and that all these overwhelming calamities have befallen us
in consequence of its prohibition. In the following five
books I address myself to those who admit that such cala-
mities have at all times attended, and will at all times attend,
the human race, and that they constantly recur in forms more
or less disastrous, varying only in the scenes, occasions, and
persons on whom they light, but, while admitting this, main-
tain that the worship of the gods is advantageous for the life
to coma In these ten books, then, I refute these two
opinions, which are as groundless as they are antagonistic to
the Christian religion.

M But that no one might have occasion to say, that though
I had refuted the tenets of other men, I had omitted to
establish my own, I devote to this object the second part of

1 A.D. 410.

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this work, which comprises twelve books, although I have
not scrupled, as occasion offered, either to advance my own
opinions in the first ten books, or to demolish the arguments
Jf7 0f my opponents in the last twelve. Of these twelve books,
the first four contain an account of the origin of these two
/• cities — the city of God, and the city of the world. The
second four treat of their history or progress ; the third and
last four, of their deserved destinies. And so, though all
these twenty-two books refer to both cities, yet I have
named them after the better city, and called them The City
of God.”

Such is the account, given by Augustine himself1 of the
occasion and plan of this his greatest work. But in addition
to this explicit information, we learn from the correspondence3
of Augustine, that it was due to the importunity of his Mend
Marcellinus that this defence of Christianity extended beyond
the limits of a few letters. Shortly before the fall of Rome,
Marcellinus had been sent to Africa by the Emperor Honorius
to arrange a settlement of the differences between the Dona-
tists and the Catholics. This brought him into contact not
only with Augustine, but with Volusian, the proconsul of
Africa, and a man of rare intelligence and candour. Finding
that Volusian, though as yet a pagan, took an interest in the
Christian religion, Marcellinus set his heart on converting
him to the true faith. The details of the subsequent signifi-
cant intercourse between the learned and courtly bishop and
the two imperial statesmen, are unfortunately almost entirely
lost to us ; but the impression conveyed by the extant corre-
spondence is, that Marcellinus was the means of bringing his
two Mends into communication with one another. The first
overture was on Augustine’s part, in the shape of a simple
and manly request that Volusian would carefully peruse the
Scriptures, accompanied by a frank offer to do his best to
solve any difficulties that might arise in such a course of
inquiry. Volusian accordingly enters into correspondence
with Augustine ; and in order to illustrate the kind of diffi-
culties experienced by men in his position, he gives some
graphic notes of a conversation in which he had recently
1 Retractations , ii. 43. * Letters 132-8.

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taken part at a gathering of some of his friends. The diffi-
culty to which most weight is attached in this letter, is the
apparent impossibility of believing in the Incarnation. But
a letter which Marcellinus immediately despatched to Augus-
tine, urging him to reply to Volusian at large, brought the
intelligence that the difficulties and objections to Christianity
were thus limited merely out of a courteous regard to the
preciousness of the bishop's time, and the vast number of his
engagements. This letter, in short, brought out the important
fact, that a removal of speculative doubts would not suffice
for the conversion of such men as Volusian, whose life was
one with the life of the empire. Their difficulties were rather
political, historical, and social They could not see how the
reception nf tlm Christian rule of life was compatible with
the interests of Rome as the mistress of the world.1 * And
thus Augustine was led to take a more distinct and wider
view of the whole relation which Christianity bore to the old
state of things, — moral, political, philosophical, and religious,
— and was gradually drawn on to undertake the elaborate
work now presented to the English reader, and which may
more appropriately than any other of his writings be called
his masterpiece3 or life-work. It was begun the very year of a
Marcellinus' death, A.D. 413, and was issued in detached
portions from time to time, until its completion in the year
426. It thus occupied the maturest years of Augustine's
life — from his fifty-ninth to his seventy-second year.8

From this brief sketch, it will be seen that though the
accompanying work is essentially an Apology, the Apologetic
of Augustine can be no mere rehabilitation of the somewhat
threadbare, if not effete, arguments of Justin and Tertullian.4 * *
In fact, as Augustine considered what was required of him, —
to expound the Christian faith, and justify it to enlightened /

1 See some admirable remarks on this subject in the useful work of Beugnot,
Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisms, ii. 83 et sqq.

* As Waterland (iv. 760) does call it, adding that it is “his most learned,
most correct, and most elaborate work. ”

* For proof, see the Benedictine Preface.

4 “ Hitherto the Apologies had been framed to meet particular exigencies :

they were either brief and pregnant statements of the Christian doctrines ; re-

futations of prevalent calumnies ; invectives against the follies and crimes of

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men ; to distinguish it from, and show its superiority to, all
* those forms of truth, philosophical or popular, which were
then striving for the mastery, or at least for standing-room ;
^ to set before the world’s eye a vision of glory that might win
the regard even of men who were dazzled by the fascinating
splendour of a world-wide empire, — he recognised that a task
was laid before him to which even his powers might prove
unequal, — a task certainly which would afford ample scope for
his learning, dialectic, philosophical grasp and acumen, elo-
quence, and faculty of exposition.

But it is the occasion of this great Apology which invests
it at once with grandeur and vitality. After more than eleven
hundred years of steady and triumphant progress, Borne had
been taken and sacked. It is difficult for us to appreciate,
impossible to overestimate, the shock which was thus com-
municated from centre to circumference of the whole known
world. It was generally believed, not only by the heathen,
but also by many of the most liberal-minded of the Christians,
that the destruction of Borne would be the prelude to the
destruction of the world.1 Even Jerome, who might have
been supposed to be embittered against the proud mistress
of the world by her inhospitality to himself, cannot conceal
his profound emotion on hearing of her fall. "A terrible
rumour,” he says, “ reaches me from the West, telling of Borne
besieged, bought for gold, besieged again, life and property
perishing together. My voice falters, sobs stifle the words I
dictate ; for she is a captive, that city which enthralled the
world.”2 Augustine is never so theatrical as Jerome in the
expression of his feeling, but he is equally explicit in lament-
ing the fall of Borne as a great calamity ; and while he does
not scruple to ascribe her recent disgrace to the profligate

Paganism ; or confutations of anti-Christian works like those of Celsus, Por-
phyry, or Julian, closely following their course of argument, and rarely expand-
ing into general and comprehensive views of the great conflict." — Milman,
History of Christianity, iil c. 10. We are not acquainted with any more
complete preface to the City of God than is contained in the two or three pages
which Milman has devoted to this subject

1 See the interesting remarks of Lactantius, Instil. viL 25.

* “Haret vox et singultus intercipiunt verba dictantis. Capitur urbs qua
totum cepit orbem.” — Jkrome, iv. 783.

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manners, the effeminacy, and the pride of her citizens, he is\
not without hope that, by. a return to the simple, hardy, and
honourable mode of life which characterized the early Homans, r
she may still be restored to much of her former prosperity.1
But as Augustine contemplates the ruins of Home's greatness,
and feels, in common with all the world at this crisis, the
instability of the strongest governments, the insufficiency of
the most authoritative statesmanship, there hovers over these pnUmauul^
ruins the splendid vision of the city of God “ coming down ^
out of heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband.'' The old 0vv

social system is crumbling away on all sides, but in its place - (ff

he seems to see a pure Christendom arising. He sees that ,

human histoiy and human destiny are not wholly identified
with the history of any earthly power — not though it be as}
cosmopolitan as the empire of Home.2 He directs the atten-
tion of men to the fact that there is another kingdom on
earth, — a city which hath foundations, whose builder and
maker is God. He teaches men to take profounder views of
history, and shows them how from the first the city of God,
or community of God’s people, has lived alongside of the
kingdoms of this world and their glory, and has been silently
increasing, "crescit oeculto velut arbor aevo.” He demon-
strates that the superior morality, the true doctrine, the
heavenly origin of this city, ensure its success; and over
against this, he depicts the silly or contradictory theorizings
of the pagan philosophers, and the unhinged morals of the
people, and puts it to all candid men to say, whether in the
presence of so manifestly sufficient a cause for Rome's down-
fall, there is room for imputing it to the spread of Chris-
tianity. He traces the antagonism of these two grand com-
munities of rational creatures back to their first divergence
in the fall of the angels, and down to the consummation of all
things in the last judgment and eternal destination of the good
and evil In other words, the city of God is "the first real
effort to proauce a philosophy of history, '^Hbo exhibit historical

1 See below, iv. 7.

* This is well brought out by MeriYale, Conversion of the Roman Empire , * —
p. 145, etc.

* Ozanaxn, History cf Civilisation in the Fifth Century (Eng. trans.), ii. 160.

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events in connection with their trpe causes, and in their real
sequence. This plan of the work is not only a great concep-
tion, but it is accompanied with many practical advantages ;
the chief of which is, that it admits, and even requires, a full
treatment of those doctrines of our faith that are more directly
historical, — the doctrines of creation, the fall, the incarnation,
the connection between the Old and New Testaments, and the
doctrine of “ the last things.” 1

The effect produced by this great work it is impossible
to determine with accuracy. Beugnot, with an absoluteness
which we should condemn as presumption in any less com-
petent authority, declares that its effect can only have been
very slight.2 * Probably its effect would be silent and slow ;
telling first upon cultivated minds, and only indirectly upon
the people. Certainly its effect must have been weakened
by the interrupted manner of its publication. It is an easier
task to estimate its intrinsic value. But on this also patristic
and literary authorities widely differ. Dupin admits that it
is very pleasant reading, owing to the surprising variety of
matters which are introduced to illustrate and forward the
argument, but censures the author for discussing very useless
questions, and for adducing reasons which could satisfy no
one who was not already convinced.8 Huet also speaks of
the book as“un amas confus d’excellents materiaux ; c’est de
Tor en barre et en lingo ts.” 4 * L’Abb6 Flottes censures these
opinions as unjust, and cites with approbation the unqualified
eulogy of Pressens^.6 But probably the popularity of the
book is its best justification. This popularity may be
measured by the circumstance that, between the year 1467
and the end of the fifteenth century, no fewer than twenty

1 Abstracts of tbe work at greater or less length are given by Dupin, Binde-
mann, Bohringer, Poujoulat, Ozanam, and others.

* His words are : “ Plus on examine la Cite de Dieu, plus on reste convaincu
que cet ouvrage dftt exercea tres-peu d’influence sur l’esprit des paiens” (ii 122);
and this though he thinks one cannot but be struck with the grandeur of the
ideas it contains.

5 History of Ecclesiastical Writers , i. 406.

4 Huetiana , p. 24.

6 Flottes, Etudes sur S. Augustin (Paris, 1861), pp. 154-6, one of the most

accurate and interesting even of French monographs on theological writers.

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editions were called for, that is to say, a fresh edition every
eighteen months.1 And in the interesting series of letters
that passed between Ludovicus Yives and Erasmus, who had
engaged him to write a commentary on the City of Ood for
his edition of Augustine's works, we find Yives pleading for
a separate edition of this work, on the plea that, of all the
writings of Augustine, it was almost the only one read by
patristic students, and might therefore naturally be expected
to have a much wider circulation.2

If it were asked to what this popularity is due, we should
be disposed to attribute it mainly to the great variety of ideas,
opinions, and facts that are here brought before the reader’s
mind. Its importance as a contribution to the history of
opinion cannot be overrated. We find in it not only indica-
tions or explicit enouneement of the author’s own views upon
almost every important topic which occupied his thoughts,
but also a compendious exhibition of the ideas which most
powerfully influenced the life of that aga It thus becomes,
as Poujoulat says, “ comme l’encyclop^diedu cinqui&me si&cle.”
All that is valuable, together with much indeed that is not so,
in the religion and philosophy of the classical nations of
antiquity, is reviewed. And on some branches of these sub-
jects it has, in the judgment of one well qualified to judge,
u preserved more than the whole surviving Latin literature.”
It is true we are sometimes wearied by the too elaborate
refutation of opinions which to a modem mind seem self-
evident absurdities ; but if these opinions were actually pre-
valent in the fifth century, the historical inquirer will not
quarrel with the form in which his information is conveyed,
nor will commit the absurdity of attributing to Augustine the
foolishness of these opinions, but rather the credit of explod-
ing them. That Augustine is a well-informed and impartial

1 These editions will be found detailed in the second volume of Schoenem&nn’s
Bibliotheca Pat.

* His words (in Ep. vi) are quite worth quoting : “ Cura Togo te, ut excn-
dantur aliquot centena exemplarium istius opens a reliquo Augustini corpore
separata ; nam multi erunt studiosi qui Augustinum to turn emere vel nollent,
rel non poterunt, quia non egebunt, seu quia tan turn pecuniae non habebunt.
8 do enim fere a deditis studiis istis elegantioribus prater hoc Augustini opus
nullum fere aliud legi ejusdem autoris.”

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critic, is evinced by the courteousness and candour which he
uniformly displays to his opponents, by the respect he won
from the heathen themselves, and by his own early life. The
most rigorous criticism has found him at fault regarding
matters of fact only in some very rare instances, which can
be easily accounted for. His learning would not indeed stand
comparison with what is accounted such in our day: his
life was too busy, and too devoted to the poor and to the
spiritually necessitous, to admit of any extraordinary acqui-
sition. He had access to no literature but the Latin ; or at
least he had only sufficient Greek to enable him to refer to
Greek authors on points of importance, and not enough to
enable him to read their writings with ease and pleasure.1
But he had a profound knowledge of his own time, and a ,
familiar acquaintance not only with the Latin poets; but with .
many other authors, some of whose writings are now lost to
us, save the fragments preserved through his quotations.

But the interest attaching to the City of God is not merely
historical It is the earnestness and ability with which he
developes his own philosophical and theological views which
gradually fascinate the reader, and make him see why the
world has set this among the few greatest books of all time.
The fundamental lines of the Augustinian theology are here
laid down in a comprehensive and interesting form. Never
was thought so abstract expressed in language so popular. -
He handles metaphysical problems with the unembarrassed *
ease of Plato, with all Cicero’s accuracy and acuteness, and
more than Cicero’s profundity. He is never more at home
than when exposing the incompetency of Neoplatonism, or
demonstrating the harmony of Christian doctrine and true
philosophy. And though there are in the City of God , as
in all ancient books, things that seem to us childish and
-* i barren, there are also the most surprising anticipations of
* / modern speculation. There is an earnest grappling with
those problems which are continually re-opened because they
underlie man’s relation to God and the spiritual world, — the

1 The fullest and fairest discussion of the very simple yet never settled ques-
tion of Augustine’s learning will be found in Nourrisson’s Philosophie de S.
Augustin, ii. 92-100.

*

¥

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problems which are not peculiar to an 7 one century. As we
read these animated discussions,

“ The fourteen centuries fall away

Between us and the Afric saint,

And at his side we urge, to-day,

The immemorial quest and old complaint.

No outward sign to us is given,

From sea or earth comes no reply ;

Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven
He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky. ”

It is true, the style of the book is not all that could be
desired: there are passages which can possess an interest
only to the antiquarian; there are others with nothing to
redeem them but the glow of their eloquence; there are
many repetitions; there is an occasional use of arguments
“ plus ingenieux que solides,” as M. Saisset says. Augustine’s
great admirer, Erasmus, does not scruple to call him a writer
“ obscurae subtilitatis et parum amcenae prolixitatis ;” 1 but
* the toil of penetrating the apparent obscurities will be re-
warded by finding a real wealth of insight and enlightenment.”
Some who have read the opening chapters of the City of God ,
may have considered it would be a waste of time to proceed ;
but no one, we are persuaded, ever regretted reading it all
The book has its faults ; but it effectually introduces us to
the most influential of theologians, and the greatest popular
teacher ; to a genius that cannot nod for many lines together ;
to a reasoner whose dialectic is more formidable, more keen
and sifting, than that of Socrates or Aquinas ; to a saint whose
ardent and genuine devotional feeling bursts up through the
severest argumentation; to a man whose kindliness and- wit,
universal sympathies and breadth of intelligence, lend piquancy
and vitality to the most abstract dissertation.

The propriety of publishing a translation of so choice a
specimen of ancient literature needs no defence. As Pou-
joulat very sensibly remarks, there are not a great many men
now-a-days who will read a work in Latin of twenty-two
hooka Perhaps there are fewer still who ought to do so.
With our busy neighbours in France, this work has been a

1 Erasmi Epistolce zx. 2.

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prime favourite for 400 years. There may be said to be
eight independent translations of it into the French tongue,
though some of these are in part merely revisions. One of
these translations has gone through as many as four editions.
The most recent is that which forms part of the Nisard series ;
but the best, so far as we have seen, is that of the accomplished
Professor of Philosophy in the College of France, Emile Saisset.
This translation is indeed all that can be desired : here and
there an omission occurs, and about one or two renderings a
difference of opinion may exist; but the exceeding felicity
and spirit of the whole show it to have been a labour of
love, the fond homage of a disciple proud of his master. The
^preface of M. Saisset is one of the most valuable contributions
ever made to the understanding of Augustine’s philosophy.1

Of English translations there has been an unaccountable
poverty. Only one exists,2 and this so exceptionally bad, so
unlike the racy translations of the seventeenth century in
general, so inaccurate, and so frequently unintelligible, that
it is not impossible it may have done something towards
giving the English public a distaste for the book itself. That
the present translation also might be improved, we know;
that many men were fitter for the task, on the score of
scholarship, we are very sensible; but that any one would
have executed it with intenser affection and veneration for
the author, we are not prepared to admit A few notes have
been added where it appeared to be necessary. Some are
original, some from the Benedictine Augustine, and the rest
from the elaborate commentary of Vives.3

The Editor.

Glasgow, 1871.

1 A large part of it has been translated in Saisset’s Pantheism (Clark, Edin.).

* By J. H., published in 1610, and again in 1620, with Vives’ commentary.

8 As the letters of Vives are not in every library, we give his comico-pathetic
account of the result of his Augustin ian labours on his health : “Ex quo
Angus tinum perfeci, nunquam valui ex sententia ; proximo vero hebdomade
et hac, fracto corpore cuncto, et nervis lassitudine quadam et debilitate dejectis,
in caput decern turres incumbere mihi videntur incidendo pondere, ac mole
intolerabili ; isti sunt fructus studiorum, et merces pulcherrimi laboris ; quid
labor et benefacta juvant T ”

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THE CITY OF GOD.

BOOK FIEST.

ARGUMENT.

AUGUSTINE CENSURES THE PAG AN 8, WHO ATTRIBUTED THE CALAMITIES OP THE
WORLD, AND ESPECIALLY THE RECENT SACK OF ROME BY THE GOTHS, TO
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND ITS PROHIBITION OF THE WORSHIP OP THE
GODS. HE 8PEAK8 OP THE BLESS1NG8 AND ILLS OP LIFE, WHICH THEN, AS
ALWAY8, HAPPENED TO GOOD AND BAD MEN ALIKE. FINALLY, HE REBUKES
THE 8H AMELES8N ESS OF THOSE WHO CAST UP TO THE CHRISTIANS THAT
THEIR WOMEN HAD BEEN VIOLATED BY THE 80LDIERS.

PREFACE, EXPLAINING HIS DESIGN IN UNDERTAKING
THIS WORK.

THE glorious city of God is my theme in this work, which
you, my dearest son Marcellinus,1 suggested, and which
is due to you by my promise. I have undertaken its defence
against those who prefer their own gods to the Founder of
this city, — a city surpassingly glorious, whether we view it as it
still lives by faith in_this fleeting course of time, and sojourns
as a stranger in the^ midst of the ungodly* or as it shall dwell
in the fixed stability of its eternal seat, which it now with
patience waits for, expecting until “ righteousness shall return
into judgment,”* and it obtain, by virtue of its excellence,
final victory and perfect peace. A great work this, and an
arduous ; but God is my helper. For I am aware what
ability is requisite to persuade the proud how great is the
virtue of humility, which raises us, not by a quite human
arrogance, but by a divine jjrace, above all earthly dignities
that totter on this shifting scene. For the King and Founder

1 See the Editor’s Preface.

* Ps. xciv. 15, rendered otherwise in Eng. ver.

VOL. L A

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THE CITY OF GOD.

[BOOK L

of this city of which we speak, has in Scripture uttered to
His people a dictum of the divine law in these words : “ God
resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” 1 But
this, which is God’s prerogative, the inflated ambition of a
proud spirit also affects, and dearly loves that this be numbered
among its attributes, to

“ Show pity to the humbled soul.

And crush the sons of pride. ” *

And therefore, as the plan of this work we have undertaken
requires, and as occasion offers, we must speak also of the
earthly city, which, though it be mistress of the nations, is
itself ruled by its lust of rule.

1. Of the adversaries of the name of Christ , whom the barbarians for Christ's
sake spared when they stormed the city.

For to this earthly city belong the enemies against whom
I have to defend the city of God. Many of them, indeed,
being reclaimed from their ungodly error, have become suffi-
ciently creditable citizens of this city ; but many are so in-
flamed with hatred against it, and are so ungrateful to its
Redeemer for His signal benefits, as to forget that they would
now be unable to utter a single word to its prejudice* had they?
not found in its sacred places, as they fled from the enemy’s
steel/that life in which they nowjbqast . themselye^. Are not
tlTose very Romans, who were spared by the barbarians through
their respect for Christ, become enemies to the name of Christ?
The reliquaries of the martyrs and the churches of the apostles
bear witness to this ; for in the sack of the city they were
open sanctuary for all who fled to them, whether Christian
or Pagan. To their very threshold the bloodthirsty enemy
raged ; there his murderous fury owned a limit. Thither did
such of the enemy as had any pity convey those to whom
they had given quarter, lest any less mercifully disposed
might fall upon them. And, indeed, when even those mur-
derers who everywhere else showed themselves pitiless came
to these spots where that was forbidden which the licence of
war permitted in every other place, their furious rage for
slaughter was bridled, and their eagerness to take prisoners
was quenched. Thus escaped multitudes who now reproach
1 Jas. iv. 6 and 1 Pet. v. 5. s Virgil, jEneid, vi 854.

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BOOK L] THE BARBARIANS RESPECT CHRISTIAN CHURCHES. 3

the Christian religion, and impute to Christ the ills that have
befallen their city ; but the preservation of their own life — a
boon which they owe to the respect entertained for Christ by
the barbarians — they attribute not to our Christ, but to their
own good luck. They ought rather, had they any right per-
ceptions, to attribute the severities and hardships inflicted by
their enemies, to that divine providence which is wont to
reform the depraved maimers of men by chastisement, and
which exercises with similar afflictions the righteous and
praiseworthy, — either translating them, when they have passed
through the trial, to a better world, or detaining them still on
earth for ulterior purposes. And they ought to attribute it
to the spirit of these Christian times, that, contrary to the
custom of war, these bloodthirsty barbarians spared them, and
spared them for Christ's sake, whether this mercy was actually
shown in promiscuous places, or in those places specially
dedicated to Christ's name, and of which the very largest
were selected as sanctuaries, that full scope might thus be
given to the expansive compassion which desired that a large
multitude might find shelter there. Therefore ought they to
give God thanks, and with sincere confession flee for refuge to
His name, that so they may escape the punishment of eternal
fire — they who with lying lips took upon them this name,
that they might escape the punishment of present destruction.
For of those whom you see insolently and shamelessly insult-
ing the servants of Christ, there are numbers who would not
have escaped that destruction and slaughter had they not pre-
tended that they themselves were Christ's servants. Yet now,
in ungrateful pride and most impious madness, and at the
risk of being punished in everlasting darkness, they perversely
oppose that name under which they fraudulently protected
themselves for the sake of enjoying the light of this brief
lifa

2. Thai it is quite contrary to the usage of icar, that the victors should spare
the vanquished for the sake of their gods.

There are histories of numberless wars, both before the
building of Home and since its rise and the extension of its
dominion : let these be read, and let one instance be cited in
which, when a city had been taken by foreigners, the victors

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THE CITY OF GOD.

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spared those who were found to have fled for sanctuary to the
temples of their gods ;l * or one instance in which a barbarian
general gave orders that none should be put to the sword who
had been found in this or that temple. Did not iEneas see

“ Dying Priam at the shrine,

Staining the hearth he made divine ! M *

Did not Diomede and Ulysses

“ Drag with red hands, the sentry slain,

Her fateful image from yonr fane,

Her chaste locks touch, and stain with gore
The virgin coronal she wore T ” 3

Neither is that true which follows, that

*• Thenceforth the tide of fortune changed,

And Greece grew weak. ” 4

For after this they conquered and destroyed Troy with fire and
sword ; after this they beheaded Priam as he fled to the altars.
Neither did Troy perish because it lost Minerva. For what
had Minerva herself first lost, that she should perish ? Her
guards perhaps ? No doubt ; just her guards. For as soon
as they were slain, she could be stolen. It was not, in fact,
the men who were preserved by the image, but the image by
the men. How, then, was she invoked to defend the city and
the citizens, she who could not defend her own defenders ?

3. That the Romans did not show their usual sagacity when they trusted
that they would be benefited by the gods who had been unable to defend
Troy.

And these be the gods to whose protecting care the
[Romans were delighted to entrust their city! 0 too, too
piteous mistake ! And they are enraged at us when we
speak thus about their gods, though, so far from being enraged
at their own writers, they part with money to learn what
they say ; and, indeed, the very teachers of these authors are
reckoned worthy of a salary from the public purse, and of
other honours. There is Virgil, who is read by boys, in order
that this great poet, this most famous and approved of all

1 The Benedictines remind us that Alexander and Xenophon, at least on some

occasions, did so.

* Virgil, Jfcneidy ii 501-2. The renderings of Virgil are from Conington.

* Ibid, ii 163. 4 Ibid.

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HELPLESSNESS OF THE GODS OF HOME.

5

poets, may impregnate their virgin minds, and may not readily
be forgotten by them, according to that saying of Horace,

“ The fresh cask long keeps its first tang. ” 1

Well, in this Virgil, I say, Juno is introduced as hostile to
the Trojans, and stirring up iEolus, the king of the winds,
against them in the words,

“ A race I hate now ploughs the sea,

Transporting Troy to Italy,

And home-gods conquered ”* . . .

And ought prudent men to have entrusted the defence of
Eome to these conquered gods ? But it will be said, this was
only the saying of Juno, who, like an angry woman, did not
how what she was saying. What, then, says iEneas himself,
— iEneas who is so often designated "pious?” Does he not say,

“ Lo ! Panthus, ’scaped from death by flight.

Priest of Apollo on the height,

His conquered gods with trembling hands
He bears, and shelter swift demands ? ” 8

Is it not clear that the gods (whom he does not scruple to call
“conquered”) were rather entrusted to iEneas than he to
them, when it is said to him,

“ The gods of her domestic shrines
Your country to your care consigns ? ” 4

If, then, Virgil says that the gods were such as these, and
were conquered, and that when conquered they could not
escape except under the protection of a man, what madness
is it to suppose that Borne had been wisely entrusted to these
guardians, and could not have been taken unless it had lost
them ! Indeed, to worship conquered gods as protectors and
champions, what is this but to worship, not good divinities,
hut evil omens ? 6 Would it not be wiser to believe, not that
Borne would never have fallen into so great a calamity had
not they first perished, but rather that they would have
jrerished long since had not Borne preserved them as long as
she could ? For who does not see, when he thinks of it, what
a foolish assumption it is that they could not be vanquished
under vanquished defenders, and that they only perished

1 Horace, Ep. I. it 69. * ^Eneid, i. 71. 3 Ibid, ii 319. 4 Ibid. 293.

4 Non numina bona, sed omina mala.

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because they had lost their guardian gods, when, indeed, the
only cause of their perishing was that they chose for their
protectors gods condemned to perish ? The poets, therefore,
when they composed and sang these things about the con-
quered gods, had no intention to invent falsehoods, but uttered,
as honest men, what the truth extorted from them. This,
however, will be carefully and copiously discussed in another
and more fitting place. Meanwhile I will briefly, and to the
best of my ability, explain what I meant to say about these
ungrateful men who blasphemously impute to Christ the cala-
mities which they deservedly suffer in consequence of their
own wicked ways, while that which is for Christ’s sake spared
them in spite of their wickedness they do not even take the
trouble to notice; and in their mad and blasphemous insolence,
they use against His name those veiy lips wherewith they
falsely claimed that same name that their lives might be
spared. In the places consecrated to Christ, where for His
sake no enemy would injure them, they restrained their tongues
that they might be safe and protected ; but no sooner do they
emerge from these sanctuaries, than they unbridle these tongues
to hurl against Him curses full of hate.

4. Of the asylum qf Juno in Troy , which saved no one from the Greeks; and of
the churches of the apostles , which protected from the barbarians all who
fed to them,

Troy itself, the mother of the Homan people, was not able,
as I have said, to protect its own citizens in the sacred places
of their gods from the fire and sword of the Greeks, though
the Greeks worshipped the same gods. Not only so, but

“ Phoenix and Ulysses fell
In the void courts by Juno’s cell
Were set the spoil to keep ;

Snatched from the burning shrines away,

There Ilium’s mighty treasure lay,

Kich altars, bowls of massy gold,

And captive raiment, rudely rolled
In one promiscuous heap ;

While boys and matrons, wild with fear,

In long array were standing near.” 1

In other words, the place consecrated to so great a goddess
1 Virgil, JZneid , ii. 761.

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THE ASYLUM OF JUNO IN TROY.

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was chosen, not that from it none might be led out a captive,
but that in it all the captives might be immured. Compare
now this “ asylum ” — the asylum not of an ordinary god, not
of one of the rank and file of gods, but of Jove’s own sister
and wife, the queen of all the gods — with the churches built
in memory of the apostles. Into it were collected the spoils
rescued from the blazing temples and snatched from the gods,
not that they might be restored to the vanquished, but divided
among the victors ; while into these was carried back, with the
most religious observance and respect, everything which be-
longed to them, even though found elsewhere. There liberty
was lost; here preserved. There bondage was strict; here
strictly excluded. Into that temple men were driven to be-
come the chattels of their enemies, now lording it over them ;
into these churches men were led by their relenting foes, that
they might be at liberty. In fine, the gentle 1 Greeks appro-
priated that temple of Juno to the purposes of their own
avarice and pride ; while these churches of Christ were chosen
even by the savage barbarians as the fit scenes for humility
and mercy. But perhaps, after all, the Greeks did in that
victory of theirs spare the temples of those gods whom they
worshipped in common with the Trojans, and did not dare to
put to the sword or make captive the wretched and vanquished
Trojans who fled thither ; and perhaps Virgil, in the manner
of poets, has depicted what never really happened ? But there
is no question that he depicted the usual custom of an enemy
when sacking a city.

5. Cctsar’a statement regarding the universal custom oj an enemy when
sacking a city .

Even Caesar himself gives us positive testimony regarding
this custom ; for, in his deliverance in the senate about the
conspirators, he says (as Sallust, a historian of distinguished
veracity, writes *) “ that virgins and boys are violated, children
tom from the embrace of their parents, matrons subjected to

1 Though ** levis ” was the word usually employed to signify the inconstancy
of the Greeks, it is evidently here used, in opposition to “immanis ” of the follow-
ing danse, to indicate that the Greeks were more civilised than the barbarians,
and not relentless, but, as we say, easily moved.

* De Conj. Cat. c. 51.

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THE CITY OF GOD.

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whatever should be the pleasure of the conquerors, temples
and houses plundered, slaughter and burning rife ; in fine, all
things filled with arms, corpses, blood, and wailing/' If he
had not mentioned temples here, we might suppose that
enemies were in the habit of sparing the dwellings of the gods.
And the Roman temples were in danger of these disasters,
not from foreign foes, but from Catiline and his associates,
the most noble senators and citizens of Rome. But these,
it may be said, were abandoned men, and the parricides of
their fatherland.

6. That not even the Romans , when they took cities, spared the conquered
in their temples .

Why, then, need our argument take note of the many
nations who have waged wars with one another, and have
nowhere spared the conquered in the temples of their gods ?
Let us look at the practice of the Romans themselves : let us,
I say, recall and review the Romans, whose chief praise it has
been “ to spare the vanquished and subdue the proud," and
that they preferred “ rather to forgive than to revenge an in-
jury;”1 and among so many and great cities which they have
stormed, taken, and overthrown for the extension of their
dominion, let us be told what temples they were accustomed
to exempt, so that whoever took refuge in them was free. Or
have they really done this, and has the fact been suppressed
by the historians of these events? Is it to be believed,
that men who sought out with the greatest eagerness points
they could praise, would omit those which, in their own
estimation, are the most signal proofs of piety? Marcus
Marcellus, a distinguished Roman, who took Syracuse, a most
splendidly adorned city, is reported to have bewailed its
coming ruin, and to have shed his own tears over it
before he spilt its blood. He took steps also to preserve
the chastity even of his enemy. For before he gave orders
for the storming of the city, he issued an edict forbidding the
violation of any free person. Yet the city was sacked accord-
ing to the custom of war ; nor do we anywhere read, that even
by so chaste and gentle a commander orders were given that
no one should be injured who had fled to this or that temple.

1 Sallust, Cat. Conj. ix.

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And this certainly would by no means have been omitted,
when neither his weeping nor his edict preservative of chastity
could be passed in silence. Fabius, the conqueror of the city
of Tarentum, is praised for abstaining from making booty of
the images. For when his secretary proposed the question to
him, what he wished done with the statues of the gods, which
had been taken in large numbers, he veiled his moderation
under a joke. For he asked of what sort they were ; and when
they reported to him that there were not only many large
images, but some of them armed, * Oh,” says he, “ let us leave
with the Tarentines their angry gods.” Seeing, then, that the
writers of Homan history could not pass in silence, neither the
weeping of the one general nor the laughing of the other,
neither the chaste pity of the one nor the facetious modera-
tion of the other, on what occasion would it be omitted, if, for
the honour of any of their enemy's gods, they had shown this
particular form of leniency, that in any temple slaughter or
captivity was prohibited ?

7. That the cruelties which occurred tn the sack of Rome were in accordance
with the custom of war , whereas the acts of clemency resulted from the
influence of Christ* 8 name.

All the spoiling, then, which Home was exposed to in the
recent calamity — all the slaughter, plundering, burning, and
misery — was the result of the custom of war. But what was
novel, was that savage barbarians showed themselves in so
gentle a guise, that the largest churches were chosen and set '
apart for the purpose of being filled with the people to whom
quarter was given, and that in them none were slain, from
them none forcibly dragged ; that into them many were led
by their relenting enemies to be set at liberty, and that from
them none were led into slaveiy by merciless foes. Whoever
does not see that this is to be attributed to the name of Christ,
and to the Christian temper,* is blind; whoever sees this,
and gives no praise’)' is ungrateful ; whoever hinders any one
from praising itJWs mad. Far be it from any prudent man to
impute this clemency to the barbarians. Their fierce and
bloody minds were awed, and bridled, and marvellously tem-
pered by Him who so long before said by His prophet, “ I

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THE CITY OF GOD.

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will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquities
with stripes ; nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly
take from them.” 1

8 . Of the advantages and disadvantage* which often indiscriminately accrue to
good and wicked men.

Will some one say, Why, then, was this divine compassion
extended even to the ungodly and ungrateful ? Why, but be-
cause it was the mercy of Him who daily “ maketh His sun to
rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just
and on the unjust.” * For though some of these men, taking
thought of this, repent of their wickedness and reform, some,
as the apostle says, “ despising the riches of His goodness and
long-suffering, after their hardness and impenitent heart, trea-
sure up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath and
revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render
to every man according to his deeds :” 9 nevertheless does the
patience of God still invite the wicked to repentance, even as,
'the scourge of GocT educates the goodto patience. And

}too, does the mercy of God embrace the good that
chensh them, as the severity of God arrests the wicked
punish them! To the divine providence it has seemed good to
f prepare in the world to come for the righteous good things,
which the unrighteous shall not enjoy; and for the wicked
evil things, by which the good shall not be tormented. "Hut
as tor the good things of this lifeT anJitsjlls, God has willed
; that these should be common to both ; that we might not too
eagerly covet the things which wicked men are seen equally
to enjoy, nor shrink with an unseemly fear from the ills which
seven good men often suffer.

There is, too, a very great difference in the purpose served
both by those events which we call adverse and those called
prosperous. For the good man is neither uplifted with the
good things of time, nor broken by its ills ; but the wicked*
^man, "because he is corrupted by this world's happiness, feel$
^himself punished by its unhappiness.4 Yet often, even in the

1 Ps. lxxxix. 32. * Matt v. 45. 8 Rom. ii. 4.

4 So Cyprian ( Contra Demetrianum ) says, “ Pcenam de adversis mundi ille
sen tit, cui et laetitia et gloria onmis in mnndo eat”

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BOOK L] WHY GOOD AND BAD MEN SUFFER ALIKE.

11

present distribution of temporal things, does God plainly evince
His own interference. For if every sin were now visited with
manifest punishment, nothing_ would seem to he reserved for
the finaTjudgment ; on the other hand, if no sin received now
a plainly divine punishment, it would he concluded that there
is' no divine providence at all. And so S00^ things of

life: if God did not by a very visible liberality confer
these on some of those persons who ask for them, we should
say that these good things were not at His disposal; and if
He gave them to all who sought them, we should suppose that
such were the only rewards of His service ; and such a service
would make us not godly, hut jjreedy rather, and covetous.

Wherefore, though good and had men suffer alike, we must
not suppose that there is no difference between the men them-
selves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer.

i in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an
unhkeness in the sufferers ; and though exposed to the same

virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the -
same lire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke ; and
Under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain i •
is cleansed ; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though i - ^ •
squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same
violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but
damns, ruins^ exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that
in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blasphemy
while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does
it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man
suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud
exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odour.

9. 0/ the reasons for administering correction to bad and good together.

What, then, have the Christians suffered in that calamitous
period, which would not profit every one who duly and faith-
fully considered the following circumstances ? First of all, they
must humbly consider those very sins which have provoked God af'
to fill the world with such terrible disasters; for although they be

far from the excesses of wicked, immoral, and ungodly men, yet * ^

they do not judge themselves so clean removed from all faults
as to be too good to suffer for these even temporal ills. For

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THE CITY OF GOD.

[BOOK I.

every man, however laudably he lives, yet yields in some points
to the lust of the flesh. Though he do not fall into gross enor-
mity of wickedness, and abandoned viciousness, and abomin-
able profanity, yet he slips into some sins, either rarely or so
much the more frequently as the sins seem of less account.
But not to mention this, where can we readily find a man who
holds in fit and just estimation those persons on account of
whose revolting pride, luxury, and avarice, and cursed iniqui-
ties and impiety, God now smites the earth as His predictions
threatened ? Where is the man who lives with them in the
style in which it becomes us to live with them ? For often
we wickedly blind ourselves to the occasions of teaching and
admonishing them, sometimes even of reprimanding and chid-
ing them, either because we shrink from the labour or are
ashamed to offend them, or because we fear to lose good friend-
ships, lest this should stand in the way of our advancement,
or injure us in some worldly matter, which either our covetous
disposition desires .to obtain, or our weakness shrinks from
losing. So that, although the conduct of wicked men is dis-
tasteful to the good, and therefore they do not fall with them
into that damnation which in the next life awaits such persons,
yet, because they spare their damnable sins through fear, there-
fore, even though their own sins be slight and venial, they are
justly scourged with the wicked in this world, though in eter-
nity they quite escape punishment. Justly, when God afflicts
them in common with the wicked, do they find this life bitter,.
^ .though love of whose sweetness they^declined to be bitter toj
\these sinners.

If any one forbears to reprove and find fault with those
H*who are doing wrong, because he seeks a more seasonable
opportunity, or because he fears they may be made worse by
his rebuke, or that other weak persons may be disheartened
from endeavouring to lead a good and pious life, and may be
driven from the faith ; this man's omission seems to be occa-
sioned not by covetousness, but by a charitable consideration.
But what is blameworthy is, that they who themselves revolt
from the conduct of the wicked, and live in quite another
fashion, yet spare those faults in other men which they ought
to reprehend and wean them from ; and spare them because

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BOOK L] CONFORMITY OF CHRISTIANS TO THE UNGODLY.

13

they fear to give offence, lest they should injure their interests
in those things which good men may innocently and legiti-
mately use, — though they use them more greedily than becomes
persons who are strangers in this world, and profess the hope
of a heavenly country. For not only the weaker brethren,
who enjoy married life, and have children (or desire to have
them), and own houses and establishments, whom the apostle
addresses in the churches, warning and instructing them how
they should live, both the wives with their husbands, and the
husbands with their wives, the children with their parents,
and parents with their children, and servants with their masters,
and masters with their servants, — not only do these weaker
brethren gladly obtain and grudgingly lose many earthly and
temporal things on account of which they dare not offend men
whose polluted and wicked life greatly displeases them ; but
those also who live at a higher level, who are not entangled in
the meshes of married life, but use meagre food and raiment,
do often take thought of their own safety and good name, and
abstain from finding fault with the wicked, because they fear
their wiles and violence. And although they do not fear them
to such an extent as to be drawn to the commission of like
iniquities, nay, not by any threats or violence soever; yet
those very deeds which they refuse to share in the commission
of, they often decline to find fault with, when possibly they
might by finding fault prevent their commission. They abstain
from interference, because they fear that, if it fail of good effect,
their own safety or reputation may be damaged or destroyed ;
not because they see that their preservation and good name
are needful, that they may be able to influence those who need
their instruction, but rather because they weakly relish the
flattery and respect of men, and fear the judgments of the
people, and the pain or death of the body; that is to say,,
their non-intervention is the result of selfishness, and not of]

\ga ~ —

Accordingly, this seems to me to be one principal reason
why the good are chastised along with the wicked, when God
is pleased to visit with temporal punishments the profligate
manners of a community. They are punished together, not
because they have spent an equally corrupt life, but because

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the good as well as the wicked, though not equally with them,
love this present life ; while they ought to hold it cheap, that
the wicked, being admonished and reformed by their example,
might lay hold of life etemaL And if they will not be the
companions of the good in seeking life everlasting, they should
be loved as enemies, and be dealt with patiently. For so long
as they live, it remains uncertain whether they may not come
to a better mind. These selfish persons have more cause to
fear than those to whom it was said through the prophet, " He
is taken away in his iniquity, but his .blood will I require at
the watchman’s hand.” * 1 * For watchmen or overseers of the
people are appointed in churches, that they may unsparingly
rebuke sin. Nor is that man guiltless of the sin we speak of,
who, though he be not a watchman, yet sees in the conduct of
those with whom the relationships of this life bring him into
contact, many things that should be blamed, and yet overlooks
them, fearing to give offence, and lose such worldly blessings
as may legitimately be desired, but which he too eagerly

grasps. Then, lastly, there is another reason why the good
are afflicted with temporal calamities — the reason which Job’s
,case exemplifies: that the human spirit may

t it may be manifested with what fortitude of pious trust

SEWiiir

ow unmercen

10. That the saints lose nothing in losing temporal goods.

These are the considerations which one must keep in view,
that he may answer the question whether any evil happens to
the faithful and godly which cannot be turned to profit Or
shall we say that the question is needless, and that the apostle
is vapouring when he says, “ We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God ?” 3
> They lost all they had. Their faith ? Their godliness ?
) The possessions of the hidden man of the heart, which in the
I sight of God are of great price ?4 Did they lose these ? For
these are the wealth of Christians, to whom the wealthy apostle

1 Ezek. xxxiii. 6.

* Compare with this chapter the first homily of Chrysostom to the people of

Antioch.

8 Bom. viii. 28* 4 1 Pet iii 4.

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said/' Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought
nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing
out. And having food and raiment, let us be therewith con-?
tent. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a
snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown
men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is
the root of all evil ; which, while some coveted after, they have
erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with
many sorrows” 1

They, then, who lost their worldly all in the sack of Borne,
if they owned their possessions as they had been taught by
the apostle, who himself was poor without, but rich within, —
that is to say, if they used the world as not using it, — could
say in the words of Job, heavily tried, but not overcome:

* Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I
return thither : the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ;
as it pleased the Lord, so has it come to pass : blessed be the
name of the Lord.”* Like a good servant, Job counted the
will of his Lord his great possession, by obedience to which
his soul was enriched ; nor iid it grieve him to lose, while
yet living, those goods which he must shortly leave at his
death. But as to those feebler spirits who, though they?
cannot he said to prefer earthly possessions to Christ, do yetj
cleave to them with a somewhat immoderate attachment, they \
have discovered by the pain of losing these things how much j
they were sinning in loving them. For their grief is of their j
own making ; in the words of the apostle quoted above,!
“ they have pierced themselves through with many sorrows/y
For it was well that they who had so long despised these
verbal admonitions should receive the teaching of experience.
For when the apostle says, “ They that will be rich fall into
temptation,” and so on, what he blames in riches is not the
possession of them, but the desire of them. For elsewhere he
says, “ Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be
not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the
living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that
they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to dis-
tribute, willing to communicate ; laying up in store for them-
1 1 Tim. yi 6-10. * Job i. 21.

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selves a good foundation against the time to come, that they
may lay hold on eternal life.”1 They who were making such,
a use of their property have been consoled for light losses by
great gains, and have had more pleasure in those possessions
which they have securely laid past, by freely giving them
away, than grief in those which they entirely lost by an
anxious and selfish hoarding of them. For nothing could
perish on earth save what they would be ashamed to carry
away from earth. Our Lord’s injunction runs, “ Lay not up
for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal ; but lay
up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor
steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be
also.”2 And they who have listened to this injunction have
proved in the time of tribulation how well they were advised
in not despising this most trustworthy teacher, and most
faithful and mighty guardian of their treasure. For if many
were glad that their treasure was stored in places which the
enemy chanced not to light upon, how much better founded
was the joy of those who, by the counsel of their God, had
fled with their treasure to a citadel which no enemy can pos-
sibly reach ! Thus our Paulinus, bishop of Nola,8 who volun-
tarily abandoned vast wealth and became quite poor, though
abundantly rich in holiness, when the barbarians sacked Nola,
and took him prisoner, used silently to pray, as he afterwards
told me, “ 0 Lord, let me not be troubled for gold and silver,
for where all my treasure is Thou knowest.” For all his
treasure was where he had been taught to hide and store it
by Him who had also foretold that these calamities would
happen in the world. Consequently those persons who obeyed
their Lord when He warned them where and how to lay up
treasure, did not lose even their earthly possessions in the
invasion of the barbarians; while those who are now repenting

1 1 Tim. vi. 17-19. 3 * * Matt. vi. 19-21.

3 Paulinus was a native of Bordeaux, and both, by inheritance and marriage

acquired great wealth, which, after his conversion in his thirty-sixth year, he

distributed to the poor. He became bishop of Nola in A.D. 409, being then in

his fifty- sixth year. Kola was taken by Alaric shortly after the sack of Rome.

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WHY CHRISTIANS WERE TORTURED.

1 1

that they did not obey Him have learnt the right use of
earthly goods, if not by the wisdom which would have pre-
vented their loss, at least by the experience which follows it.

But some good and Christian men have been put to the
torture, that they might be forced to deliver up their goods to
the enemy. They could indeed neither deliver nor lose that
good whieh made themselves good. If, however, they pre-
ferred torture to the surrender of the mammon of iniquity,
then I say they were not good men. Bather they should
have been reminded that, if they suffered so severely for the
sake of money, they should endure all torment, if need be, for
Christ's sake ; that they might be taught to love Him rather
who enriches with eternal felicity all who suffer for Him, and
not silver and gold, for which it was pitiable to suffer, whether
they preserved it by telling a lie, or lost it by telling the truth.
For under these tortures no one lost Christ by confessing Him,
no one preserved wealth save by denying its existence. So
that possibly the torture which taught them that they should
set their affections on a possession they could not lose, was
more useful than those possessions which, without any useful
fruit at all, disquieted and tormented their anxious owners.
But then we are reminded that some were tortured who had
no wealth to surrender, but who were not believed when they
said so. These too, however, had perhaps some craving for
wealth, and were not willingly poor with a holy resignation ;
and to such it had to be made plain, that not the actual pos-
session. alone, but also the desire of wealth, deserved such
excruciating pains. And even if they were destitute of any
hidden stores of gold and silver, because they were living
in hopes of a better life, — I know not indeed if any such
person was tortured on the supposition that he had wealth ;
but if so, then certainly in confessing, when put to the ques-
tion, a holy poverty, he confessed Christ. And though it was
scarcely to be expected that the barbarians should believe
him, yet no confessor of a holy poverty could be tortured
without receiving a heavenly reward.

Again, they say that the long famine laid many a Christian
low. But this, too, the faithful turned to good uses by a pious
endurance of it. For those whom famine killed outright it

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rescued from the ills of this life, as a kindly disease would
have done; and those who were only hunger-bitten were
taught to live more sparingly, and inured to longer fasts.

11. Of the end qf this Itfe, whether it is material that it he long delayed .

But, it is added, many Christians were slaughtered, and
were put to death in a hideous variety of cruel ways. Well,
if this be hard to bear, it is assuredly the common lot of all
who are bom into this life. Of this at least I am certain,
that no one has ever died who was not destined to die some
time. Now the end of life puts the longest life on a par with
the shortest. For of two things which have alike ceased to
be, the one is not better, the other worse — the one greater, the
other less.1 And of what consequence is it what kind of
death puts an end to life, since he who has died once is not
forced to go through the same ordeal a second time ? And as
in the daily casualties of life every man is, as it were, threat-
ened with numberless deaths, so long as it remains uncertain
which of them is his fate, I would ask whether it is not better
to suffer one and die, than to live in fear of all ? I am not
unaware of the poor-spirited fear which prompts us to choose
rather to live long in fear of so many deaths, than to die once
and so escape them all ; but the weak and cowardly shrinking
of the flesh is one thing, and the well-considered and reason-
able persuasion of the soul quite another. That death is_not
to be judged an evil which is the end of a good life; fon
(death becomes jevil only by the retribution which follows it.1
)They, then, who are destined to die, need not be careful to
inquire^what death they are to die, but into what place death
wilT usher them. And since Christians are well aware that
the death of the godly pauper whose sores the dogs licked
was far better than of the wicked rich man who lay in purple
and fine linen, what harm could these terrific deaths do to
the dead who had lived well ?

1 Much of a kindred nature might be gathered from the Stoics. Antoninus
says (it 14) : *' Though thou shouldest be going to live 8000 years, and as many
times 10,000 years, still remember that no man loses any other life thun this
which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses. The
longest and the shortest are thus brought to the same."

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12. Of the burial qf the dead : that the denial of it to Christians does them no

injury.1

Further still, we are reminded that in such a carnage as
then occurred, the bodies could not even be buried. But
godly confidence is not appalled by so ill-omened a circum-
stance ; for the faithful bear in mind that assurance has been
given that not a hair of their head shall perish, and that,
therefore, though they even be devoured by beasts, their
blessed resurrection will not hereby be hindered. The Truth
would nowise have said, “ Fear not them which kill the body,
but are not able to kill the soul,”* if anything whatever that
an enemy could do to the body of the slain could be detri-
mental to the future life. Or will some one perhaps take so
absurd a position as to contend that those who kill the body
are not to be feared before death, and lest they kill the body,
but after death, lest they deprive it of burial ? If this be so,
then that is false which Christ says, “ Be not afraid of them
that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can
do ; ”a for it seems they can do great injury to the dead body.
Far be it from us to suppose that the Truth can be thus false.
They who kill the body are said “ to do something,” because
the death-blow is felt, the body still having sensation ; but
after that, they have no more that they can do, for in the
slain body there is no sensation. And so there are indeed
many bodies of Christians lying unburied ; but no one Jias
separated them from heaven, nor from that earth which is all
iple<J with the presence ot Him Vho knows whence He will
raise again what He created It is said, indeed, in the Psalm :
“■fte* "dead bodies of Thy servants have they given to be meat
unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of Thy saints unto the
beasts of the earth. Their blood have they shed like water
round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them.”4
But this was said rather to exhibit the cruelty of those who
did these things, than the misery of those who suffered them.
To the eyes of men this appears a harsh and doleful lot, yet
* precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”5

1 Augustine expresses himself more folly on this subject in his tract, Dt
c wra pro mortuis gerenda.

* Matt. x. 28. 8 Luke xii. 4. 4 Ps. lxxix. 2, 3. 6 Ps. cxvi. 15.

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Wherefore all these last offices and ceremonies that concern
the dead, the careful funeral arrangements, and the equipment
of the tomb, and the pomp of obsequies, ye rather the solace
of the li ving_than Jhc comfort of the dead If a costly burial]
'i does any good to a wicked man, a squalid burial, or none at all,*
(may harm the godly. His crowd of domestics furnished the)
j purple-clad Dives with a funeral gorgeous in the eye of man ; )
but in the sight of God that was a more sumptuous funeral/
which the ulcerous pauper received at the hands of the angels,
who did not carry him out to a marble tomb, but bore him
aloft to Abraham's bosom.

The men against whom I have undertaken to defend the
city of God laugh at all this. But even their own philo-
sophers1 have despised a careful burial; and often whole
armies have fought and fallen for their earthly country with-
out caring to inquire whether they would be left exposed on
the field of battle, or become the food of wild beasts. Of this
noble disregard of sepulture poetry has well said : “ He who
has no tomb has the sky for his vault.”* How much less
ought they to insult over the unburied bodies of Christians,
to whom it has been promised that the flesh itself shall be
restored, and the body formed anew, all the members of it
being gathered not only from the earth, but from the most
secret recesses of any other of the elements in which the dead
bodies of men have lain hid !

13. Reasons for burying the bodies of the saints.

Nevertheless the bodies of the dead are not on this ac-
count to be despised and left unburied ; least of all the bodies
of the righteous and faithful, which have been used by the
Holy Ghost as Bos organs and instruments for all good works.
For if the dress of a father, or his ring, or anything he wore,
be precious to his children, in proportion to the love they
bore him, with how much more reason ought we to care for

1 Diogenes especially, and his followers. See also Seneca, De Tranq. c. 14,
and Epist. 92 ; and in Ciceros Tusc . Disp. i. 43, the answer of Theodoras, the
Cyrenian philosopher, to Lysimachus, who threatened him with the cross:

“ Threaten that to your courtiers ; it is of no consequence to Theodorus whether
he rot in the earth or in the air.”

* Lucan, Pharsalia , vii. 819, of those whom Csesar forbade to be buried after
the battle of Pharsalia.

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the bodies of those we love, which they wore far more closely
and intimately than any clothing ! For the body is not an
extraneous ornament or aid, but a part of man’s very nature.
And therefore to the righteous of ancient times the last offices
were piously rendered, and sepulchres provided for them, and
obsequies celebrated j1 and they themselves, while yet alive,
gave commandment to their sons about the burial, and, on
occasion, even about the removal of their bodies to some
favourite place.9 And Tobit, according to the angel’s testi-
mony, is commended, and is said to have pleased God by
burying the dead.8 Qur Lord Himself, too, though He was
to rise again the third day, applauds, and commends to our
applause, the good work of the religious woman who poured
precious ointment over His limbs, and did it against His burial4
And the Gospel speaks with commendation of those who were
careful to take down His body from the cross, and wrap it
lovingly in costly cerements, and see to its buriaL* These
instances certainly do not prove that corpses have any feeling ;
but they show that God’s providence extends even to the
bodies of the dead, and that such pious offices are pleasing to
Him, as cherishing faith in the resurrection. And we may
also draw from them this wholesome lesson, that if God does
not forget even any kind office which loving care pays to the
unconscious dead, much more does He reward the charity we
exercise towards the living. Other things, indeed, which the
holy patriarchs said of the burial and removal of their bodies,
they meant to be taken in a prophetic sense ; but of these we
need not here speak at large, what we have already said being
sufficient But if the want of those things which are neces-
sary for the support of the living, as food and clothing, though
painful and trying, does not break down the fortitude and
virtuous endurance of good men, nor eradicate piety from their
souls, but rather renders it more fruitful, how much less can
the absence of the funeral, and of the other customary atten-
tions paid to the dead, render those wretched who are already
reposing in the hidden abodes of the blessed ! Consequently,
though in the sack of Borne and of other towns the dead

1 Gen. xxv. 9, xxxv. 29, etc. 1 Gen. xlvii 29, L 24.

* Tob. xii. 12. 4 Matt, xxvi. 10-13. 8 John xix. 38.

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bodies of the Christians were deprived of these last offices,
this is neither the fault of the living, for they could not render
them ; nor an infliction to the dead, for they cannot feel the
loss.

14. Of the captivity of the saints, and that divine consolation never failed them

therein.

But, say they, many Christians were even led away cap-
tive. This indeed were a most pitiable fate, if they could be
led away to any place where they could not find their God.
But for this calamity also sacred Scripture affords great con-
solation. The three youths1 were captives; Daniel was a
captive ; so were other prophets : and God, the comforter, did
not fail them. And in like manner He has not failed His
own people in the power of a nation which, though barbarous,
is yet human, — He who did not abandon the prophet8 in the
] belly of a monster. These things, indeed, are turned to ridi-
' cule rather than credited by those with whom we are debat-
ing ; though they believe what they read in their own books,
that Arion of Methymna, the famous lyrist,8 when he was
thrown overboard, was received on a dolphin’s back and carried
to land. But that story of ours about the prophet Jonah is
far more incredible, — more incredible because more marvellous,

( and more marvellous because a greater exhibition of power.

15. Of Begulu*, in whom we have an example of the voluntary endurance of

captivity for the sake of religion ; which yet did not profit him, though he
was a worshipper of the gods.

But among their own famous men they have a very noble
example of the voluntary endurance of captivity in obedience
to a religious scruple. Marcus Attilius Regulus, a Roman
general, was a prisoner in the hands of the Carthaginians.
But they, being more anxious to exchange their prisoners with
the Romans than to keep them, sent Regulus as a special
envoy with their own ambassadors to negotiate this exchange,
but bound him first with an oath, that if he failed to ac-
complish their wish, he would return to Carthage. He went,
and persuaded the senate to the opposite course, because he

1 Dan. iii. * Jonah.

8 “ Second to none," as he is called by Herodotus, who first of all tells his
well-known story (Clio. 23, 24).

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believed it was not for the advantage of the Homan republic
to make an exchange of prisoners. After he had thus exerted
his influence, the Homans did not compel him to return to the
enemy; but what he had sworn he voluntarily performed.
But the Carthaginians put him to death with refined, elabo-
rate, and horrible tortures. They shut him up in a narrow
box, in which he was compelled to stand, and in which finely
sharpened nails were fixed all round about him, so that he
could not lean upon any part of it without intense pain ; and
so they killed him by depriving him of sleep.1 With justice,
indeed, do they applaud the virtue which rose superior to so
frightful a fate. However, the gods he swore by were those
who are now supposed to avenge the prohibition of their wor-
ship, by inflicting these present calamities on the human race.
But if these gods, who were worshipped specially in this
behalf, that they might confer happiness in this life, either
willed or permitted these punishments to be inflicted on one
who kept his oath to them, what more cruel punishment
could they in their anger have inflicted on a peijured person ?
But why may I not draw from my reasoning a double infer-
ence ? Hegulus certainly had such reverence for the gods,
that for his oath’s sake he would neither remain in his own
land, nor go elsewhere, but without hesitation returned to his
bitterest enemies. If he thought that this course would be
advantageous with respect to this present life, he was certainly
much deceived, for it brought his life to a frightful termina-
tion. By his own example, in fact, he taught that the gods
do not secure the temporal happiness of their worshippers ;
since he himself, who was devoted to their worship, was both
conquered in battle and taken prisoner, and then, because he
refused to act in violation of the oath he had sworn by them,
was tortured and put to death by a new, and hitherto unheard
of, and all too horrible kind of punishment. And on the sup-
position that the worshippers of the gods are rewarded by
felicity in the life to come, why, then, do they calumniate
the influence of Christianity ? why do they assert that this

1 Augustine here uses the words of Cicero ( “ vigilando peremernnt ” ), who
refers to Regains, tn Pisonem, c. 19. Aulas Gellias, quoting Tubero and Tudi*
tonus (vi 4), adds some farther particulars regarding these tortures.

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disaster has overtaken the city because it has ceased to wor-
ship its gods, since, worship them as assiduously as it may, it
may yet be as unfortunate as Regulus was ? Or will some
one carry so wonderful a blindness to the extent of wildly
attempting, in the face of the evident truth, to contend that
though one man might be unfortunate, though a worshipper of
the gods, yet a whole city could not be so ? That is to say,
the power of their gods is better adapted to preserve multi-
tudes than individuals, — as if a multitude were not composed
of individuals.

But if they say that M. Regulus, even while a prisoner
and enduring these bodily torments, might yet enjoy the
blessedness of a virtuous soul,1 then let them recognise that
true virtue by which a city also may be blessed. For the
blessedness of a community and of an individual flow from
the same source; for a community is nothing else than a
harmonious collection of individuals. So that I am not con-
cerned meantime to discuss what kind of virtue Regulus
possessed : enough, that by his very noble example they are
forced to own that the gods are to be worshipped not for the
sake of bodily comforts or external advantages ; for he pre-
ferred to lose all such things rather than offend the gods by
whom he had sworn. But what can we make of men who
glory in having such a citizen, but dread having a city like
him ? If they do not dread this, then let them acknowledge
that some such calamity as befell Regulus may also befall a
community, though they be worshipping their gods as dili-
gently as he; and let them no longer throw the blame of
their misfortunes on Christianity. But as our present con-
cern is with those Christians who were taken prisoners, let
those who take occasion from this calamity to revile our most
wholesome religion in a fashion not less imprudent than im-
pudent, consider this and hold their peace ; for if it was no
reproach to their gods that a most punctilious worshipper of
theirs should, for the sake of keeping his oath to them, be
deprived of his native land without hope of finding another,
and fall into the hands of his enemies, and be put to death
by a long-drawn and exquisite torture, much less ought the

1 As the Stoics generally would affirm.

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BOOK L] OF THE VIRGINS WHO WERE VIOLATED.

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Christian name to be charged with the captivity of those who
believe in its power, since they, in confident expectation of a
heavenly country, know that they are pilgrims even in their
own homes.

16. Of the violation of (he consecrated and other Christian virgins to which they

were subjected in captivity , and to which their own will gave no consent ;

and whether this contaminated their souls.

But they fancy they bring a conclusive charge against
Christianity, when they aggravate the horror of captivity by
adding that not only wives and unmarried maidens, but even
consecrated virgins, were violated. But truly, with respect to
this, it is not Christian faith, nor piety, nor even the virtue
of chastity, which is hemmed into any difficulty : the only
difficulty is so to treat the subject as to satisfy at once
modesty and reason. And in discussing it we shall not be so
careful to reply to our accusers as to comfort our friends.
Let this, therefore* in the first place, be laid down as air un-
assailable position, that the virtue which makes the life good
has its throne in the soul, and thence rules the members of
the body, which becomes holy in virtue of the holiness of the
will; apd. that while the will remains firm and unshaken,
nothing that another person does with the body, or upon the
body, is any fault of the person who suffers it, so long as he
cannot escape it without sin. But as not only pain may be
inflicted, but lust gratified on the body of another, whenever
anything of this latter kind takes place, shame invades even a
thoroughly pure spirit from which modesty has not departed,
— shame, lest that act which could not be suffered without
some sensual pleasure, should be believed to have been com-
mitted also with some assent of the wilL

17. Of suicide committed through fear of punishment or dishonour.

And consequently, even if some of these virgins killed them-
selves to avoid such disgrace, who that has any human feeling Y
would refuse to forgive them ? And as for those who would
not put an end to their lives, lest they might seem to escape
the crime of another by a sin of their own, he who lays this
to their charge as a great wickedness is himself not guiltless
of the fault of folly. For if it is not lawful to take the law

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into onr own hands, and slay even a guilty person, whoso
death no public sentence has warranted, then certainly ho
who kills himself is a homicide, and so much the guiltier of
his own death, as he was more innocent of that offence for
which he doomed himself to die. Do we justly execrate the
deed of Judas, and does truth itself pronounce that by hang-
ing himself he rather aggravated than expiated the guilt of
that most iniquitous betrayal, since, by despairing of God’s
mercy in his sorrow that wrought death, he left to himself no
placefora healing penitence ? # How much more ought he to
abstain from laying violent hands on himself who has done
nothing worthy of such a punishment ! For Judas, when he
killed himself, killed a wicked man ; but he passed from this
life chargeable not only with the death of Christ, but with
his own : for though he killed himself on account of his crime,
his killing himself was another crime. Why, then, should a
man who has done no ill do ill to himself, and by killing
himself kill the innocent to escape another’s guilty act, and
perpetrate upon himself a sin of his own, that the sin of
^another may not be perpetrated on him ?

18. Of the violence which may be done to the body by another's lust, while the
mind remains inviolate.

But is there a fear that even another’s lust may pollute
the violated ? It will not pollute, if it be another’s : if it
pollute, it is not another’s, but is shared also by the polluted.
But since purity is a virtue of the soul, and has for its com-
panion virtue the fortitude which will rather endure all ills
than consent to evil ; and since no one, however magnanimous
and pure, has always the disposal of his own body, but can
control only the consent and refusal of his will, what sane
man can suppose that, if his body be seized and forcibly made
use of to satisfy the lust of another, he thereby loses his
purity ? For if purity can be thus destroyed, then assuredly
purity is no virtue of the soul ; nor can it be numbered
among those good things by which the life is made good, but
among the good things of the body, in the same category as
strength, beauty, sound and unbroken health, and, in short, all
such good things as may be diminished without at all dimin-
ishing the goodness and rectitude of our life. But if purity

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VIRGINITY A PROPERTY OF THE SOUL.

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be nothing better than these, why should the body be perilled
that it may be preserved ? If, on the other hand, it belongs
to the soul, then not even when the body is violated is it
lost Nay more, the virtue of holy continence, when it resists
the undeanness of carnal lust, sanctifies even the body, and
therefore when this continence remains unsubdued, even the
sanctity of the body is preserved, because the will to use it
holily remains, and, so far as lies in the body itself, the power
also.

For the sanctity of the body does not consist in the in-
tegrity of its members, nor in their exemption from all touch ;
for they are exposed to various accidents which do violence to
and wound them, and the surgeons who administer relief often
perform operations that sicken the spectator. A midwife,
suppose, has (whether maliciously or accidentally, or through
unskilfulness) destroyed the virginity of some girl, while
endeavouring to ascertain it : I suppose no one is so foolish
as to believe that, by this destruction of the integrity of one
organ, the virgin has lost anything even of her bodily sanctity.
And thus, so long as the soul keeps this firmness of purpose
which sanctifies even the body, the violence done by another’s
lust makes no impression on this bodily sanctity, which is
preserved intact by one’s own persistent continence. Suppose
a virgin violates the oath she has sworn to God, and goes to
meet her seducer with the intention of yielding to him, shall
we say that as she goes she is possessed even of bodily
sanctity, when already she has lost and destroyed that sanctity
of soul which sanctifies the body ? Far be it from us to so
misapply words. Let us rather draw this conclusion, that while
the sanctity of the soul remains even when the body is
violated, the sanctity of the body is not lost ; and that, in like
manner, the sanctity of the body is lost when the sanctity of
the soul is violated, though the body itself remain intact.
And therefore a woman who has been violated by the sin of
another, and without any consent of her own, has no cause to
put herself to death; much less has she cause to commit
suicide in order to avoid such violation, for in that case she
commits certain homicide to prevent a crime which is uncer-
tain as yet, and not her own.

Ca- ^ a^r S o~ut —

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19. Of LucredOf who put an end to her life because of the outrage done her.

This, then, is our position, and it seems sufficiently lucid.
We maintain that when a woman is violated While her soul
admits no consent to the iniquity, but remains inviolably*
chaste, the sin is not hers, but his who violates her. But do
they against whom we have to defend not only the souls, but
the sacred bodies too of these outraged Christian captives, — do
they, perhaps, dare to dispute our position ? But all know how
loudly they extol the purity of Lucretia, that noble matron
of ancient Rome. When King Tarquin’s son had violated
her body, she made known the wickedness of this young
profligate to her husband Collatinus, and to Brutus her kins-
man, men of high rank and full of courage, and bound them
by an oath to avenge it. Then, heart-sick, and unable to bear
the shame, she put an end to her life. What shall we call
her ? An adulteress, or chaste ? There is no question which
1 she was. Not more happily than truly did a declaimer say of
this sad occurrence : “ Here was a marvel : there were two,
and only one committed adultery.” Most forcibly and truly
f spoken. For this declaimer, seeing in the union of the two
bodies the foul lust of the one, and the chaste will of the
other, and giving heed not to the contact of the bodily mem-
bers, but to the wide diversity of their souls, says : “ There
(were two, but the adultery was committed only by one.”

But how is it, that she who was no partner to the crime
bears the heavier punishment of the two ? For the adulterer
was only banished along with his father; she suffered the
extreme penalty. If that was not impurity by which she
was unwillingly ravished, then this is not justice by which
she, being chaste, is punished. To you I appeal, ye laws
and judges of Rome. Even after the perpetration of great
enormities, you do not suffer the criminal to be slain untried.
If, then, one were to bring to your bar this case, and were to
prove to you that a woman not only untried, but chaste and
innocent, had been killed, would you not visit the murderer
with punishment proportionably severe? This crime was
committed by Lucretia; that Lucretia so celebrated and
lauded slew the innocent, chaste, outraged Lucretia. Pro-
nounce sentence. But if you cannot, because there does not

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LUCKETIA.

29

compear any one whom you can punish, why do you extol
with such unmeasured laudation her who slew an innocent
and chaste woman? Assuredly you will find it impossible
to defend her before the judges of the realms below, if they be
such as your poets are fond of representing them ; for she is
among those

** Who guiltless sent themselves to doom,

And all for loathing of the day,

In madness threw their lives away.”

And if she with the others wishes to return,

u Fate bars the way : around their keep
The slow unlovely waters creep,

And bind with ninefold chain.” 1

Or perhaps she is not there, because she slew herself con-
scious of guilt, not of innocence ? She herself alone knows
her reason; but what if she was betrayed by the pleasure
of the act, and gave some consent to Sextus, though so vio-
lently abusing her, and then was so affected with remorse,
that she thought death alone could expiate her sin ? Even
though this were the case, she ought still to have held her
hand from suicide, if she could with her false gods have
accomplished a fruitful repentance. However, if such were
the state of the case, and if it were false that there were two,
but one only committed adultery ; if the truth were that both
were involved in it, one by open assault, the other by secret
consent, then she did not kill an innocent woman ; and there-
fore her erudite defenders may maintain that she is not
among that class of the dwellers below “ who guiltless sent
themselves to doom.” But this case of Lucretia is in such a
dilemma, that if you extenuate the homicide, you confirm the
adultery : if you acquit her of adultery, you make the charge
of homicide heavier ; and there is no way out of the dilemma,
when one asks. If she was adulterous, why praise her? if
chaste, why slay her ?

Nevertheless, for our purpose of refuting those who are
unable to comprehend what true sanctity is, and who therefore
insult over our outraged Christian women, it is enough that in
the instance of this noble Roman matron it was said in her
1 Virgil, JSneid , vL 434.

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TEE CITT OF GOD.

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praise, "There were two, but the adultery was the crime
of only one.” For Lucretia was confidently believed to be
superior to the contamination of any consenting thought to
the adultery. And accordingly, since she killed herself for
being subjected to an outrage in which she had no guilty
part, it is obvious that this act of hers was prompted not by
|the love of purity, but by the overwhelming burden of her
ghame. She was ashamed thatfso foul a crimehaHT)een per-
petrated upon her, though without her abetting; and this
matron, with the Koman love of glory in her veins, was
seized with a proud dread that, if she continued to live, it
would be supposed she willingly did not resent the wrong
that had been done her. She could not exhibit to men her
conscience, but she judged that her self-inflicted punishment
would testify her state of mind; and she burned with shame
at the thought that her patient endurance of the foul affront
that another had done her, should be construed into complicity
with him. Not such was the decision of the Christian women
who suffered as she did, and yet survive. They declined to
avenge upon themselves the guilt of others, and so add crimes
of their own to those crimes in which they had no share.
For this they would have done had their shame driven them
to homicide, as the lust of their enemies had driven them
to adultery. Within their own souls, in the witness of,
Uheir own conscience, they enjoy the glory of chastity. In
^the sight of God, too, they are esteemed pure, and this con-c
jtents themj they ask no more: it suffices them to have
opportunity of doing good, and they decline to evade the
distress of human suspicion, lest they thereby deviate from
the divine law.

20. That Christians have no authority for committing suicide in any
circumstances whatever.

It is not without significance, that in no passage of the
holy canonical books there can be found either divine precept
or permission to take away our own life, whether for the sake
of entering on the enjoyment of immortality, or of shunning,
or ridding ourselves of anything whatever. Nay, the law,
rightly interpreted, even prohibits suicide, where it says,
"Thou Shalt not kilL” This is proved specially by the

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omission of the words “ thy neighbour,” which are inserted
when false witness is forbidden : “ Thou shalt not bear false
witness against thy neighbour.” Nor yet should any one on
this account suppose he has not broken this commandment if
he has borne false witness only against himself. For the love
of our neighbour is regulated by the love of ourselves, as it is
written, “ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” If, then,
he who makes false statements about himself is not less guilty
of bearing false witness than if he had made them to the injury
of his neighbour ; although in the commandment prohibiting
false witness only his neighbour is mentioned, and persons
taking no pains to understand it might suppose that a man
was allowed to be a false witness to his own hurt ; how much
greater reason have we to understand that a man may not
kill himself, since in the commandment, “ Thou shalt not kill,”
there is no limitation added nor any exception made in favour
of any one, and least of all in favour of him on whom the
command is laid ! And so some attempt to extend this com-
mand even to beasts and cattle, as if it forbade us to take life
from any creature. But if so, why not extend it also to the
plants, and all that is rooted in and nourished by the earth ?
For though this class of creatures have no sensation, yet they
also are said to live, and consequently they can die ; and there-
fore, if violence be done them, can be killed. So, too, the
apostle, when speaking of the seeds of such things as these,
says, “ That which thou sowest is not quickened except it
die ; ” and in the Psalm it is said, “ He killed their vines with
hail” Must we therefore reckon it a breaking,, of this com-,
mandment, “ Thou shalt not kill ” to pull a flower? Are. we
thus insanely tq countenance the foolish error of the Mani-
cEeans ? Putting aside, then, these ravings, if, when we say,
itou shalt not kill, we (Jo not understand this of the plants,
since they have no sensation, nor of the irrational animals
that fly, swim, walk, or creep, since they are dissociated from
us by their want of reason, and are therefore by the just
appointment of the Creator subjected to us to kill or keep
alive for our own uses ; if so, then it remains that we under-
stand that commandment simply of man. The commandment
is, “Thou shalt not kill man;” therefore neither another nor

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yourself, for he who Villa himself still kills nothing else than
man,

21. Of the cases in which toe may put men to death without incurring the guilt

<f murder .

However, there are some exceptions made by the divine
authority to its own law, that men may not be put to death.
These exceptions are of two kinds, being justified either by a
generaTIaw, or by a special commission granted for a time to
some individual And in this latter case, he to whom autho-
rity is delegated, and who is but the sword in the hand of him
who uses it, is not himself responsible for the death he deals.
And, accordingly, they who have waged war in obedience to
the divine command, or in conformity with His laws have
represented in their persons the public justice or the wisdom
of government, and in this capacity have put to death wicked
men ; such persons have by no means violated the command-
ment, " Thou shalt not kill.” Abraham indeed was not merely
! deemed guiltless of cruelty, but was even applauded for his
piety, because he was ready to slay his son in obedience to
God, not to his own passion. And it is reasonably enough
made a question, whether we are to esteem it to have been in
compliance with a command of God that Jephthah killed his
i. daughter, because she met him when he had vowed that he
would sacrifice to God whatever first met him as he returned
victorious from battle. Samson, too, who drew down the
. house on himself and his foes together, is justified only on
^ • this ground, that the Spirit who wrought wonders by him
had given him secret instructions to do this. With the ex-
ception, then, of these two classes of cases, which are justified
\ either by a just law that applies generally, or by a special in-
: tarnation from God Himself^ the fountain of aTT justice, whoever
kills a man, either himself or another, is implicated in the
guilt of murder. T ~

22. That suicide can never be prompted by magnanimity.

But they who have laid violent hands on themselves are
perhaps to be admired for their greatness of soul, though they
cannot be applauded for the soundness of their judgment
However, if you look at the matter more closely, you will
scarcely call it greatness of soul, which prompts a man to kill

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himself rather than bear up against some hardships of fortune,
or sins in which he is not implicated. Is it not rather proof
of a feeble mind, to be unable to bear either the pains of
bodily servitude or the foolish opinion of the vulgar ? And
is not that to be pronounced the greater mind, which rather
faces than flees the ills of life, and which, in comparison of
the light and purity of conscience, holds in small esteem the
judgment of men, and specially of the vulgar, which is frequently
involved in a mist of error ? And, therefore, if suicide is to be
esteemed a magnanimous act, none can take higher rank for
magnanimity than that Cleombrotus, who (as the story goes),
when he had read Plato's book in which he treats of the
immortality of the soul, threw himself from a wall, and so
passed from this life to that which he believed to be better.
For he was not hard pressed by calamity, nor by any accusa-
tion, false or true, which he could not very well have lived
down : there was, in short, no motive but only magnanimity
urging him to seek death, and break away from the sweet
detention of this life. And yet that this was a magnanimous
rather than a justifiable action, Plato himself, whom he had
read, would have told him ; for he would certainly have been
forward to commit, or at least to recommend suicide, had not
the same bright intellect which saw that the soul was im-
mortal, discerned also that to seek immortality by suicide was
to be prohibited rather than encouraged.

Again, it is said many have killed themselves to prevent
an enemy doing so. But we are not inquiring whether it has
been done, but whether it ought to have been done. Sound
judgment is to be preferred even to examples, and indeed
examples harmonize with the voice of reason ; but not all
examples, but those only which are distinguished by their
piety, and are proportionately worthy of imitation. For
suicide we cannot cite the example of patriarchs, prophets, or
apostles ; though our Lord Jesus Christ, when He admonished
them to fleelrom city to city if they were persecuted, might
very well have taken that occasion to advise them to lay
violent hands on themselves, and so escape their persecutors.
But seeing He did not do this, nor proposed this mode of
departing this life, though He were addressing His ow^

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Mends for whom He had promised to prepare everlasting
mansions, it is obvious that such examples as are produced
from the “ nations that forget God,” give no warrant of imita-
tion to the worshippers of the one true God.

23. What we are to think of the example of Cato , who dew himself became
unable to endure Caesar's victory .

Besides Lucretia, of whom enough has already been said,
our advocates of suicide have some difficulty in finding any
other prescriptive example, unless it be that of Cato, who
killed himself at Utica. His example is appealed to, not
because he was the only man who did so, but because he was
so esteemed as a learned and excellent man, that it could
plausibly be maintained that what he did was and is a good
thing to do. But of this action of his, what can I say but
that his own friends, enlightened men as he, prudently dis-
suaded him, and therefore judged his act to be that of a feeble
rather than a strong spirit, and dictated not by honourable
feeling forestalling shame, but by weakness shrinking from
hardships ? Indeed, Cato condemns himself by the advice he
gave to his dearly loved son. For if it was a disgrace to live
under Caesar’s rule, why did the father urge the son to this
disgrace, by encouraging him to trust absolutely to Caesar’s
generosity? Why did he not persuade him to die along
with himself? If Torquatus was applauded for putting
his son to death, when contrary to orders he had engaged,
and engaged successfully, with the enemy, why did con-
quered Cato spare his conquered son, though he did not spare
himself ? Was it more disgraceful to be a victor contrary to
orders, than to submit to a victor contrary to the received
ideas of honour ? Cato, then, cannot have deemed it to be
shameful to live under Caesar’s rule ; for had he done so, the
father’s sword would have delivered his son from this disgrace.
The truth is, that his son, whom he both hoped and desired
would be spared by Caesar, was not more loved by him than
Caesar was envied the glory of pardoning him (as indeed
Caesar himself is reported to have said *) ; or if envy is too
strong a word, let us say he was ashamed that this glory should
be his.

1 Plutarch’s Life qf Cato , 72.

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BOOK I.] EXAMPLE OP BEGULUS.

35

24. T’Aa* *» wr<«« m which Begulus excels Cato , Christians are

pre-eminently distinguished,

Our opponents are offended at our preferring to Cato the
saintly Job, who endured dreadful evils in his body rather
than deliver himself from all torment by self-inflicted death ;
or other saints, of whom it is recorded in our authoritative
and trustworthy books that they bore captivity and the oppres-
sion of their enemies rather than commit suicide. But their
own books authorize us to prefer to Marcus Cato, Marcus
Regulus. For Cato had never conquered Caesar ; and when
conquered by him, disdained to submit himself to him, and
that he might escape this submission put himself to death.
Begulus, on the contrary, had formerly conquered the Cartha-
ginians, and in command of the army of Borne had won for
the Boman republic a victory which no citizen could bewail,
and which the enemy himself was constrained to admire ; yet
afterwards, when he in his turn was defeated by them, he pre-
ferred to be their captive rather than to put himself beyond
their reach by suicide. Patient under the domination of the
Carthaginians, and constant in his love of the Romans, he
neither deprived the one of his conquered body, nor the other
of his unconquered spirit. Neither was it love of life that
prevented him from killing himself. This was plainly enough
indicated by his unhesitatingly returning, on account of his
promise and oath, to the same enemies whom he had more
grievously provoked by his words in the senate than even
by his arms in battle. Having such a contempt of life, and
preferring to end it by whatever torments excited enemies
might contrive, rather than terminate it by his own hand,
he could not more distinctly have declared how great a crime
he judged suicide to be. Among all their famous and remark-
able citizens, the Romans have no better man to boast of than
this, who was neither corrupted by prosperity, for he remained
a very poor man after winning such victories ; nor broken by
adversity, for he returned intrepidly to the most miserable
end. But if the bravest and most renowned heroes, who had
but an earthly country to defend, and who, though they had
but false gods, yet rendered them a true worship, and care-
fully kept their oath to them; if these men, who by the custom

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THE CITY OF GOD.

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and right of war put conquered enemies to the sword, yet
shrank from putting an end to their own lives even when
conquered by their enemies ; if, though they had no fear at
all of death, they would yet rather suffer slavery than commit
suicide, how much rather must Christians, the worshippers of
the true God, the aspirants to a heavenly citizenship, shrink
from this act, if in God’s providence they have been for a
season delivered into the hands of their enemies to prove or
to correct them ! And, certainly, Christians subjected to this
humiliating condition will not be deserted by the Most High,
who for their sakes humbled Himself. Neither should they
forget that they are bound by no laws of war, nor military
orders, to put even a conquered enemy to the sword ; and if
a man may not put to death the enemy who has sinned, or
may yet sin against him, who is so infatuated as to maintain
that he may kill himself because an enemy has sinned, or is
going to sin, against him ?

25. That we should not endeavour by sin to obviate sin.

But, we are told, there is ground to fear that, when the
body is subjected to the enemy’s lust, the insidious pleasure
of sense may entice the soul to consent to the sin, and steps
must be taken to prevent so disastrous a result. And is not
suicide the proper mode of preventing not only the enemy’s
sin, but the sin of the Christian so allured ? Now, in the
first place, the soul which is led by God and His wisdom,
rather than by bodily concupiscence, will certainly never con-
sent to the desire aroused in its own flesh by another’s lust
And, at all events, if it be true, as the truth plainly declare^,
that suicide is a detestable and damnable wickedness, who is
such a fool as to say, Let us sin now, that we may obviate a
possible future sin ; let us now commit murder, lest we per-
haps afterwards should commit adultery ? If we are so con-
trolled by iniquity that innocence is out of the question, and
we can at best but make a choice of sins, is not a future and
uncertain adultery preferable to a present and certain murder?
Is it not better to commit a wickedness which penitence may
heal, than a crime which leaves no place for healing contri-
tion ? I say this for the sake of those men or women who
fear they may be enticed into consenting to their violator’s

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lust, and think they should lay violent hands on themselves,
and so prevent, not another’s sin, but their own. But far be
it from the mind of a Christian confiding in God, and resting
in the hope of His aid ; far be it, I say, from such a mind
to yield a shameful consent to pleasures of the flesh, how-
soever presented. And if that lustful disobedience, which
still dwells in our mortal members, follows its own law irre-
spective of our will, surely its motions in the body of one
who rebels against them are as blameless as its motions in
the body of one who sleeps.

26. That in certain peculiar cases the examples of the saints are not to be
followed.

But, they say, in the time of persecution some holy women
escaped those who menaced them with outrage, by casting
themselves into rivers which they knew would drown them ;
and having died in this manner, they are venerated in the
church catholic as martyrs. Of such persons I do not pre-
sume to speak rashly. I cannot tell whether there may not
have been vouchsafed to the church some divine authority,
proved by trustworthy evidences, for so honouring their memory:
it may be that it is so. It may be they were not deceived by
human judgment, but prompted by divine wisdom, to their
act of self-destruction. We know that this was the case ;
with Samson. And when God enjoins any act, and intimates^
by plain evidence that He has enjoined it, who will call'
obedience criminal ? Who will accuse so religious a submis-
sion ? But then every man is not justified in sacrificing his
son to GodTSecause Abraham was commendable in so doing. j
The soldier who has slain a man in obedience to the autho-
rity under which he is lawfully commissioned, is not accused
of murder by any law of his state ; nay, if he has not slain
him, it is then he is accused of treason to the state, and of
despising the law. But if he has been acting on his own
authority, and at his own impulse, he has in this case
incurred the crime of shedding human blood. And thus
he is punished for doing without orders the very thing he
is punished for neglecting to do when he has been ordered.
If the commands of a general make so great a difference, shall
the commands of God make none ? He, then, who knows it

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is unlawful to kill himself, may nevertheless do so if he is
ordered by Him whose commands we may not neglect. Only
let him be veiy sure that the divine command has been
signified. As for us, we can become privy to the secrets
of conscience only in so far as these are disclosed to us, and
so far only do we judge : “ Ho one knoweth the things of a
man, save the spirit of man which is in him.”1 But this we
affirm, this we maintain, this we every way pronounce to be
right, that no man ought to inflict on himself voluntary death,
for this is to escape the ills of time by plunging into those of

1

eternity; that no man ought to do so on account of another
man’s sins, for this were to escape a guilt which could not

pollute him, by incurring great guilt of his own ; that no man
S oughtjtojlo so on account of his own past sins, for he has^aSj
| the more need of this lifejbhat these sins may beTiealed bjn
I (repentance ; that no man should put an end to this life toj
W ohtam that better life we look for after death, for those who!

[die by their own hand have no better life after death.

27. Whether voluntary death should be sought in order to avoid sin.

There remains one reason for suicide which I mentioned
before, and which is thought a sound one, — namely, to prevent
one’s falling into sin either through the blandishments of
pleasure or the violence of pain. If this reason were a good
one, then we should be impelled to exhort men at once to
destroy themselves, as soon as they have been washed in the
layer of regeneration, and have received the forgiveness of all
sin. Then is the time to escape~all future sin, when all past
sin is blotted out. And if this escape be lawfully secured by
suicide, why not then specially ? Why does any baptized per-
son hold his hand from taking his own life ? Why does any
person who is freed from the hazards of this life again expose
himself to them, when he has power so easily to rid himself
of them all, and when it is written, “ He who loveth danger
shall fall into it ?”2 Why does he love, or at least face, so
many serious dangers, by remaining in this life from which
he may legitimately depart ? But is any one so blinded and
twisted in his moral nature, and so far astray from the truth,
1 1 Cor. ii. 11. 1 Ecclus. in. 27.

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as to think that, though a man ought to make away with him-
self for fear of being led into sin by the oppression of one
man, his master, he ought yet to live, and so expose himself
to the hourly temptations of this world, both to all those
evils which the oppression of one master involves, and to
numberless other miseries in which this life inevitably impli-
cates us ? What aason, then, is there for our consuming time
in those exhortations by which we seek to animate the bap-
tized, either to virginal chastity, or vidual continence, or
matrimonial fidelity, when we have so much more simple
and compendious a method of deliverance from sin, by per-
suading those who' are fresh from baptism to put an end to
tiieir lives, and so pass to their Lord pure and well-conditioned ?
If any one thinks that such persuasion should be attempted, I
say not he is foolish, but mad. With what face, then, can he
say to any man, “ Kill yourself, lest to your small sins you
add a heinous sin, while you live under an unchaste master,
whose conduct is that of a barbarian ?” How can he say this,
if he cannot without wickedness say, “ Kill yourself, now that
you are washed from all your sins, lest you fall again into
similar or even aggravated sins, while you live in a world
which has such power to allure by its unclean pleasures, to
torment by its horrible cruelties, to overcome by its errors
and terrors ?” It is wicked to say this ; it is therefore wicked
to kill oneself For if there could be any just cause of
suicide, this were so. And since not even this is so, there is
none.

28. By what judgment of God the enemy was permitted to indulge his lust on the
bodies qf continent Christians .

Let not your life, then, be a burden to you, ye faithful ser-
vants of Christ, though your chastity was made the sport
of your enemies. You have a grand and true consolation, if
you maintain a good conscience, and know that you did not
consent to the sins of those who were permitted to commit
sinful outrage upon you. And if you should ask why this
permission was granted, indeed it is a deep providence of the
Creator and Governor of the world; and “ unsearchable are His
judgments, and His ways past finding out.” 1 Nevertheless,

1 Bom. xL 38.

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THE CITY OF GOD.

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faithfully interrogate your - own souls, whether ye have not
been unduly puffed up by your integrity, and' continence, and
chastity ; and whether ye have not been so desirous of the
human praise that is accorded to these virtues, that ye have
envied some who possessed them. I, for my part, do not
know your hearts, and therefore I make no accusation ; I do
not even hear what your hearts answer when you question
them. And yet, if they answer that it is as I have supposed
it might be, do not marvel that you have lost that by which
you can win men’s praise, and retain that which cannot be
exhibited to men. If you did not consent to sin, it was
because God added His aid to His grace that it might not
be lost, and because shame before men succeeded to human
glory that it might not be loved. But in both respects even
the fainthearted among you have a consolation, approved by
the one experience, chastened by the other ; justified by the
one, corrected by the other. As to those whose hearts, \fchen
interrogated, reply that they have never been proud of the
virtue of Virginity, widowhood, or matrimonial chastity, but,
condescending to those of low estate, rejoiced with trembling
in these gifts of God, and that they have never envied any
one the like excellences of sanctity and purity, but rose
superior to human applause, which is wont to be abundant in
proportion to the rarity of the virtue applauded, and rather
desired that their own number be increased, than that by the
smallness of their number each of them should be conspi-
cuous ; — even such faithful women, I say, must not complain
that permission was given to the barbarians so grossly to
outrage them ; nor must they allow themselves to believe that
God overlooked their character when He permitted acts which
no one with impunity commits. For some most flagrant and
wicked desires are allowed free play at present by the secret
judgment of God, and are reserved to the public and final
judgment. Moreover, it is possible that those Christian
women, who are unconscious of any undue pride on account
of their virtuous chastity, whereby they sinlessly suffered the
violence of their captors, had yet some lurking infirmity which
might have betrayed them into a proud and contemptuous
bearing, had they not been subjected to the humiliation that

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befell them in the taking of the city. As, therefore, some
men were removed by death, that no wickedness might change
their disposition, so these women were outraged lest prosperity
should corrupt their modesty. Neither those women, then,
who were already puffed up by the circumstance that they
were still virgins, nor those who might have been so puffed
up had they not been exposed to the violence of the enemy,
lost their chastity, but rather gained humility : the former
were saved from pride already cherished, the latter from pride
that would shortly have grown upon them.

We must further notice that some of those sufferers may
have conceived that continence is a bodily good, and abides
so long as the body is inviolate, and did not understand that
the purity both of the body and the soul rests on the sted-
fastness of the will strengthened by God’s grace, and cannot
be forcibly taken from an unwilling person. From this error
they* are probably now delivered. For when they reflect how
conscientiously they served God, and when they settle again
to the firm persuasion that He can in nowise desert those
who so serve Him, and so invoke His aid ; and when they
consider, what they cannot doubt, how pleasing to Him is
chastity, they are shut up to the conclusion that He could
never have permitted these disasters to befall His saints, if by
them that saintliness could be destroyed which He Himself
had bestowed upon them, and delights to see in them.

29. What the servants of Christ should say in reply to the unbelievers who cast in

their teeth that Christ did not rescue them from the Jury of their enemies.

The whole family of God, most high and most true, has
therefore a consolation of its own, — a consolation which cannot
deceive, and which has in it a surer hope than the tottering
and falling affairs of earth can afford. They will not refuse
the discipline of this temporal life, in which they are schooled
for life eternal ; nor will they lament their experience of it,
for the good things of earth they use as pilgrims who are not
detained by them, and its ills either prove or improve them.
As for those who insult over them in their trials, and when
ills befall them say, "Where is thy God?”1 we may ask them
where their gods are when they suffer the very calamities for

1 Ps. xlii 10.

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THE CITY OF GOD.

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*the sake of avoiding which they worship their gods, or main-
tain they ought to be worshipped ; for the family of Christ ia
furnished with its reply : our God is everywhere present,
wholly everywhere ; not confined to any place. He can be
present unperceived, and be absent without moving; when
He exposes us to adversities, it is either to prove our perfec-
tions or correct our imperfections ; and in return for our
patient endurance of the sufferings of time, He reserves for us
an everlasting reward. But who are you, that we should
ideign to speak with you even about your own gods, much
/less about our God, who is “ to be feared above all gods? For
Jail the gods of the nations are idols ; but the Lord made the
^heavens.” 1

80. That those who complain of Christianity really desire to live without
restraint in shamrful luxury.

If the famous Scipio Nasica were now alive, who was once
your pontiff, and was unanimously chosen by the senate,
when, in the panic created by the Punic war, they sought for
the best citizen to entertain the Phrygian goddess, he would
curb this shamelessness of yours, though you would perhaps
scarcely dare to look upon the countenance of such a man.
For why in your calamities do you complain of Christianity,
unless because you desire to enjoy your luxurious licence
unrestrained, and to lead an abandoned and profligate life
without the interruption of any uneasiness or disaster ? For
certainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is
not prompted by any purpose of. using these blessings honestly,
that is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and
piety ; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless
variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your
prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousand-
fold more disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such
a calamity as this that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best
man in the judgment of the whole senate, feared when he re-
fused to agree to the destruction of Carthage, Borne’s rival ;
and opposed Cato, who advised its destruction. He feared
security, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that a
wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And

1 Pi. xcvi 4, 6.

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he was not mistaken : the event proved how wisely he had
spoken. For when Carthage was destroyed, and the Roman
republic delivered from its great cause of anxiety, a crowd
of disastrous evils forthwith resulted from the prosperous
condition of things. First concord was weakened, and de-
stroyed by fierce and bloody seditions ; then followed, by a
concatenation of baleful causes, civil wars, which brought in
their train such massacres, such bloodshed, such lawless and
cruel proscription and plunder, that those Romans who, in the
days of their virtue, had expected injury only at the hands of
their enemies, now that their virtue was lost, suffered greater
cruelties at the hands of their fellow-citizens. The lust of
rule, which with other vices existed among the Romans in
more unmitigated intensity than among any other people, after
it had taken possession of the more powerful few, subdued
under its yoke the rest, worn and wearied.

81. By what steps the passion /or governing increased among the Romans.

For at what stage would that passion rest when once it
has lodged in a proud spirit, until by a succession of advances
it has reached even the throne ? And to obtain such advances
nothing avails but unscrupulous ambition. But unscrupulous
ambition has nothing to work upon, save in a nation corrupted
by avarice and luxury. Moreover, a people becomes avaricious
smtl IgYnTiniifl hy prftflpfflify ; and it was this which that very
prudent man Nasica was endeavouring to avoid when he
opposed the destruction of the greatest, strongest, wealthiest
city of Rome’s enemy. He thought that thus fear would act as
a curb on lust, and that lust being curbed would not run riot
in luxury, and that luxury being prevented avarice would be
at an end ; and that these vices being banished, virtue would
flourish and increase, to the great profit of the state; and
liberty, the fit companion of virtue, would abide unfettered.
For similar reasons, and animated by the same considerate
patriotism, that same chief pontiff of yours — I still refer to
him who was adjudged Rome’s best man without one dissen-
tient voice — threw cold water on the proposal of the senate
to build a circle of seats round the theatre, and in a very
weighty speech warned them against allowing the luxurious

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manners of Greece to sap the Roman manliness, and per-
suaded them not to yield to the enervating and emasculating
influence of foreign licentiousness. So authoritative and
forcible were his words, that the senate was moved to pro-
hibit the use even of those benches which hitherto had been
customarily brought to the theatre for the temporary use of
the citizens. 1 How eagerly would such a man as this have
banished from Rome the scenic exhibitions themselves, had
he dared to oppose the authority of those whom he supposed
to be gods ! For he did not know that they were malicious
devils ; or if he did, he Supposed they should rather be propi-
tiated than despised. For there had not yet been revealed to
the Gentiles the heavenly doctrine which should purify their
hearts by faith, and transform their natural disposition by
humble godliness, and turn them from the service of proud
devils to seek the things that are in heaven, or even above
the heavens.

32. Of the establishment of scenic entertainments.

Know then, ye who are ignorant of this, and ye who feign
ignorance be reminded, while you murmur against Him who
has freed you from such rulers, that the scenic games, exhi-
bitions of shameless folly and licence, were established at
Rome, not by men’s vicious cravings, but by the appointment
of your gods. Much more pardonably might you have
rendered divine honours to Scipio than to such gods as these.
The gods were not so moral as their pontiff. But give me
now your attention, if your mind, inebriated by its deep pota-
tions of error, can take in any sober truth. The gods enjoined
that games be exhibited in their honour to stay a physical
pestilence ; their pontiff prohibited the theatre from being con-
structed, to prevent a moral pestilence. If, then, there remains
in you sufficient mental enlightenment to prefer the soul to
the body, choose whom you will worship. Besides, though
the pestilence was stayed, this was not because the voluptuous
madness of stage-plays had taken possession of a warlike
people hitherto accustomed only to the games of the circus ;
but these astute and wicked spirits, foreseeing that in due

1 Originally the spectators had to stand, and now (according to Livy, Ep,
xlviii.) the old custom was restored.

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ROME RUINED BY SUCCES& 45

course the pestilence would shortly cease, took occasion to
infect, not the bodies, but the morals of their worshippers, with
a far more serious disease. And in this pestilence these gods
find great enjoyment, because it benighted the minds of men
with so gross a darkness, and dishonoured them with so foul
a deformity, that even quite recently (will posterity be able to
credit it ?) some of those who fled from the sack of Borne and
found refuge in Carthage, were so infected with this disease,
that day after day they seemed to contend with one another
who should most madly run after the actors in the theatres.

*

33. Thai the overthrow of Rome hat not corrected the vices of the Romans.

Oh infatuated men, what is this blindness, or rather madness,
which possesses you ? How is it that while, as we hear, even
the eastern nations are bewailing your ruin, and while power-
ful states in the most remote parts of the earth are mourning
your fall as a public calamity, ye yourselves should be crowd-
ing to the theatres, should be pouring into them and filling
them ; and, in short, be playing a madder part now than ever
before ? This was the foul plague-spot, this the wreck of
virtue and honour that Scipio sought to preserve you from
when he prohibited the construction of theatres ; this was his
reason for desiring that you might still have an enemy to fear,
seeing as he did how easily prosperity would corrupt and
destroy J£Qu. He did not consider „ that republic flourishing
whose walls stand, but whose morals are in ruins. But the
seductions of evil-minded devils had more influence with you
than the "precautions of prudent men. Hence the injuries
you do# you wilT not permit to be imputed to you ; but the
injuries you suffer, you impute to Christianity. Depraved by
good fortune, and not chastened by adversity, what you desire
in the restoration of a peaceful and secure state, is not the
tranquillity of the commonwealth, but the impunity of your
own vicious luxury. Scipio wished you to be hard pressed
by an enemy, that you might not abandon yourselves to luxu-
rious manners; but so abandoned are you, that not even
when crushed by the enemy is your luxury repressed. You
have missed the profit of your calamity ; you have been made
most wretched, and have remained most profligate.

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THE CITY OP GOD.

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84. Of God's clemency in moderating the rum of ike city.

And that yon are yet alive is due to God, who spares you
that you may be admonished to repent and reform your lives.
It is He who has permitted you, ungrateful as you are, to escape
the sword of the enemy, by calling yourselves His servants,
or by finding asylum in the sacred places of the martyrs.

It is said that Romulus and Remus, in order to increase
the population of the city they founded, opened a sanctuary
in which every man might find asylum and absolution of all
crime, — a remarkable foreshadowing of what has recently
occurred in honour of Christ The destroyers of Rome fol-
lowed the example of its founders. But it was not greatly
to their credit that the latter, for the sake of increasing the
number of their citizens, did that which the former have done,
lest the number of their enemies should be diminished.

85. Of the sons qf the church who art hidden among the wicked , and qf false
Christians within the church.

Let these and similar answers (if any fuller and fitter answers
can be found) be given to their enemies by the redeemed family
of the Lord Christ, and by the pilgrim city of Kong Christ.
But let this city bear in mind, that among her enemies lie hid
those who are destined to be fellow-citizens, That she may
not think it a fruitless labour* to bear what they inflict as
enemies until they become confessors of the faith. So, too,
as long as shells a stranger in the world, the city of God has
in her communion, and bound to her by the sacraments, some
who shall not eternally dwell in the lot of the saints. Of
these, some are not now recognised; others declare them-
selves, and do not hesitate to make common cause with
our enemies in murmuring against God, whose sacramental
badge they wear. Thesejmen you may to-day see throng-
ing the churches with us, to-morrow crowding the theatres
with the godless, But we have the less reason to despair of
£Ee reclamation even of such persons, if among our most
declared enemies there are now some, unknown to themselves,
who are destined to become our friends. In truth, these , two
cities are entangled together in this world, and intermixed
until the last j udgjpent .effect tHeir separation^ L now proceed
to speak, as God shall help me, of the rise, progress, and end

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CONCLUSION.

47

of these twn xaiaaa ; and what T write T writ* for foft glory at
the city of God, that, being placed in nnmpftrisnn with the
other, it may shine with a biTgEter lustjg.

36. What subjects are to he handled in the following discourse.

Bat I have still some things to say in confutation of those
who refer the disasters of the Roman republic to our religion,
because it prohibits the offering of sacrifices to the gods. For
this end I must recount all, or as many as may seem sufficient,
of the disasters which befell that city and its subject provinces,
before these sacrifices were prohibited ; for all these disasters
they would doubtless have attributed to us, if at that time our
religion had shed its light upon them, and had prohibited their
sacrifices. I must then go on to show what social well-being
the true God, in whose hand are all kingdoms, vouchsafed to
grant to them that their empire might increase. I must show
why He did so, and how their false gods, instead of at all aiding
them, greatly injured them by guile and deceit. And, lastly, I
must meet those who, when on this point convinced and con-
futed by irrefragable proofs, endeavour to maintain that they
worship the gods, not hoping for the present advantages of this
life, but for those which . are to be enjoyed after death. And
this, if I am not mistaken, will be the most difficult patt of my
task, and will be worthy of the loftiest argument ; for we must
then enter the lists with the philosophers, not the mere common
herd of philosophers, but the most renowned, who in many points
agree with ourselves, as regarding the immortality of the soul,
and that the true God created the world, and by His provi-
dence rules all He has created. But as they differ from us
on other points, we must not shrink from the task of exposing
their errors, that, having refuted the gainsaying of the wicked
with such ability as God may vouchsafe, we may assert the
city of God, and true piety, and the wofship of God, to which
alone the promise of true and everlasting felicity is attached.
Here, then, let us conclude, that we may enter on these sub-
jects in a fresh book.

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THE CITY OP GOD.

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BOOK SECOND.

ARGUMENT.

IN THI8 BOOK AUGUSTINE REVIEWS THOSE CALAMITIES WHICH THE ROMAN8 SUF-
FERED BEFORE THE TIME OF CHRIST, AND WHILE THE WORSHIP OF THE
FALSE GODS WAS UNIVERSALLY PRACTISED ; AND DEMONSTRATES THAT, FAB.
FROM BEING PRESERVED FROM MISFORTUNE BY THE GODS, THE ROMANS
HAVE BEEN BY THEM OVERWHELMED WITH THE ONLY, OR AT LEAST THE
GREATEST, OF ALL CALAMITIES— THE CORRUPTION OF MANNERS, AND THE
VICES OF THE SOUL.

1. Of the limits which must he put to the necessity of replying to an adversary.

IF the feeble mind of man did not presume to resist the clear
evidence of truth, but yielded its infirmity to wholesome
doctrines, as to a health-giving medicine, until it obtained from
God, by its faith and piety, the grace needed to heal it, they
who have just ideas, and express them in suitable language,
would need to use no long discourse to refute the errors of
empty conjecture. But this mental infirmity is now more
prevalent and hurtful than ever, to such an extent that even
after the truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can
rove it to man, they hold for the very truth their own un-
easonable fancies, either on account of their great blindness,
which prevents them from seeing what is plainly set before
them, or on account of their opinionative obstinacy, which pre-
vents them from acknowledging the force of what they do see.
There therefore frequently arises a necessity of speaking more
fully on those points which are already clear, that we may, as
it were, present them not to the eye, but even to the touch,
so that they may be felt even by those who close their eyes
against them. And yet to what end shall we ever bring our
discussions, or what bounds can be set to our discourse, if we
proceed on the principle that we must always reply to those
who reply to us ? For those who are either unable to under-
stand our arguments, or are so hardened by the habit of con-

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RECAPITULATION OF BOOK FIRST.

49

tradiction, that though they understand they cannot yield to
them, reply to us, and, as it is written, “ speak hard things,”1
and are incorrigibly vain. Now, if we were to propose to con-
fute their objections as often as they with brazen face chose
to disregard our arguments, and as often as they could by any
means contradict our statements, you see how endless, and
fruitless, and painful a task we should be undertaking. And
therefore I do not wish my writings to be judged even by you,
my son Marcellinus, nor by any of those others at whose ser-
vice this work of mine is freely and in all Christian charity
put, if at least you intend always to require a reply to every
exception which you hear taken to what you read in it ; for
so you would become like those silly women of whom the
apostle says that they are “ always learning, and never able
to come to the knowledge of the truth.” *

2. Recapitulation qf the contents of the first hook .

In the foregoing book, having begun to speak of the city
of God, to which I have resolved, Heaven helping me, to con-
secrate the whole of this work, it was my first endeavour
to reply to those who attribute the wars by which the world
is being devastated, and specially the recent sack of Home
by the barbarians, to the religion of Christ, which prohibits
the offering of abominable sacrifices to devils. I have
shown that they ought rather to attribute it to Christ, that
for His name’s sake the barbarians, in contravention of all
custom and law of war, threw open as sanctuaries the largest
churches, and in many instances showed such reverence to
Christ, that not only His genuine servants, but even those who
in their terror feigned themselves to be so, were exempted from
all those hardships which by the custom of war may lawfully
be inflicted. Then out of this there arose the question, why
wicked and ungrateful men were permitted to share in these
benefits ; and why, too, the hardships and calamities of war
were inflicted on the godly as well as on the ungodly. And in
giving a suitably full answer to this large question, I occupied
some considerable space, partly that I might relieve the
anxieties which disturb many when they observe that the
blessings of God, and the common and daily human casualties,
1 Pa xdr. 4. * 2 Tim. iii. 7.

VOL. L D

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fall to the lot of bad men and good without distinction ; but
mainly that I might minister some consolation to those holy
and chaste women who were outraged by the enemy, in such
a way as to shock their modesty, though not to sully their
purity, and that I might preserve them from being ashamed
of life, though they have no guilt to be ashamed of. And
then I briefly spoke against those who with a most shameless
wantonness insult over those poor Christians who were sub-
jected to those calamities, and especially over those broken-
hearted and humiliated, though chaste and holy women ; these
fellows themselves being most depraved and unmanly profli-
gates, quite degenerate from the genuine Romans, whose
famous deeds are abundantly recorded in history, and every-
where celebrated, but who have found in their descendants the
greatest enemies of their glory. In truth. Rome, which was
founded and increased by the labours nf jhfiaa anr.ip.nt heroes,
was more shamefully ruined by their descendants, while its
walls were still standing, than it is "now by the razing of them,
fforin this ruin there fell stones and timbers ; but in the ruin
those profligates effected, there fell, not the mural, but tEe
moral bulwarks and ornaments of the city, and their hearts
burned withpassions more destructive thaiiffie flames which
consumed their houses. ThusT IT)roughf my first book to a
close And now I go on to speak of those calamities which
that city itself, or its subject provinces, have suffered since
its foundation ; all of which they would equally have attri-
buted to the Christian religion, if at that early period the
doctrine of the gospel against their false and deceiving gods
had been as largely and freely proclaimed as now.

3. That we need only to read history in order to see what calamities the Romans
suffered before the religion of Christ began to compete with the worship of
the gods.

But remember that, in recounting these things, I have still
to address myself to ignorant men ; so ignorant, indeed, as to
give birth to the common saying, " Drought and Christianity
go hand in hand.”1 There are indeed some among them who

1 4t Pluvia defit, causa Christiani. ” Similar accusations and similar replies may
be seen in the celebrated passage of Tertullian’s Apol. c. 40, and in the eloquent
exordium of Amobius, C. Genies.

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THE GODS ISSUED NO MORAL LAW.

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are thoroughly well educated men, and have a taste for history,
in which the things I speak of are open to their observation ;
but in order to irritate the uneducated masses against us, they
feign ignorance of these events, and do what they can to make
the vulgar believe that those disasters, which in certain places
and at certain times ■uniformly befall mankind, are the result
of Christianity, which is being everywhere diffused, and is i
possessed of a renown and brilliancy which quite eclipse
tfieif blVn gods.1 Let them then, along with us. call to mind
with what various and repeated disasters the prosperity of
Rome was blighted, before ever Christ had come in the flesh,
and before His name had been blazoned among tne nations
with that glory which they vainly grudge. Let them, it they
can, defend their gods in this article, since they maintain
that they worship them in order to be preserved from these
disasters, which they now impute to us if they suffer in the
least degree. For why did these gods permit the disasters
I am to speak of to fall on their worshippers before the
preaching of Christ’s name offended them, and put an end to
their sacrifices ?

4. That the worshippers of the gods never received from them any healthy moral
precepts^ and that in celebrating their worship all sorts of impurities were
practised.

First of all, we would ask why their gods took no steps to
improve the morals of their worshippers. That the true God
should neglect those who did not seek His help, that was but
justice ; but why did those gods, from whose worship ungrate-
ful men are now complaining that they are prohibited, issue
no laws which might have guided their devotees to a virtuous
life ? Surely it was but just, that such care as men showed
to the worship of the gods, the gods on their part should have
to the conduct of men. But, it is replied, it is by his own
will a man goes astray. Who denies it ? But none the less
was it incumbent on these gods, who were men’s guardians,
to publish in plain terms the laws of a good life, and not to

1 Augustine is supposed to refer to Symmachus, who similarly accused the
Christians in his address to the Emperor Valentinianus in the year 384. At
Augustine’s request, Paulus Orosius wrote his history in confutation of Sym-
machus’ charges.

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conceal them from their worshippers. It was their part to
send prophets to reach and convict such as broke these laws,
and publicly to proclaim the punishments which await evil-
doers, and the rewards which may be looked for by those that
do well Did ever the walls of any of their temples echo to
any such warning voice ? I myself, when I was a young
man, used Sometimes to go to the sacrilegious entertainments
, and spectacles ; I saw the priests raving in religious excite-
ment, and heard the choristers ; I took pleasure in the shameful
games which were celebrated in honour of gods and goddesses,
of the virgin Ccelestis,1 * * * * * * and Berecynthia,8 the mother of all the
gods. And on the holy day consecrated to her purification,
there were sung before her couch productions so obscene and
filthy for the ear — I do not say of the mother of the gods, but
of the mother of any senator or honest man — nay, so impure,
that not even the mother of the foul-mouthed players them-
selves could have formed one of the audience. For natural
reverence for parents is a bond which the most abandoned
cannot ignore. And, accordingly, the lewd actions and filthy
words with which these players honoured the mother of the
gods, in presence of a vast assemblage and audience of both
sexes, they could not for very shame have rehearsed at home
in presence of their own mothers. And the crowds that were
gathered from all quarters by curiosity, offended modesty
must, I should suppose, have scattered in the confusion of
shame. If these are sacred rites, what is sacrilege ? If this
is purification, what is pollution ? This festivity was called
the Tables,8 as if a banquet were being given at which unclean
devils might find suitable refreshment. For it is not difficult

1 Tertullian (Apol. c. 24) mentions Ccelestis as specially worshipped in Africa.
Augustine mentions her again in the 26th chapter of this book, and in other
parts of his works.

* Berecynthia is one of the many names of Rhea or Cybele. Livy (xxix. 11)

relates that the image of Cybele was brought to Rome the day before the ides
of April, which was accordingly dedicated as her feast-day. The image, it

seems, had to be washed in the stream Almon, a tributary of the Tiber, before
being placed in the temple of Victory ; and each year, as the festival returned, the

washing was repeated with much pomp at the same spot Hence Lucan’s line

(i. 600), ‘Et lotam parvo revocant Almone Cybelen,’ and the elegant verses of

Ovid, Fast. iv. 837 et seq.

* “Fercula,” dishes, or courses.

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to see what kind of spirits they must be who are delighted
with such obscenities, unless, indeed, a man be blinded by
these evil spirits passing themselves off under the name of
gods, and either disbelieves in their existence, or leads such a
life as prompts him rather to propitiate and fear them than the
true God.

5. Of the obscenities practised in honour of the mother of the gods .

In this matter I would prefer to have as my assessors in
judgment, not those men who rather take pleasure in these
infamous customs than take pains to put an end to them, but
that same Scipio Nasica who was chosen by the senate as
the citizen most worthy to receive in his hands the image of
that demon Cybele, and convey it into the city. He would
tell us whether he would be proud to see his own mother
so highly esteemed by the state as to have divine honours
adjudged to her; as the Greeks and Romans and other nations
have decreed divine honours to men who had been of material
service to them, and have believed that their mortal bene-
factors were thus made immortal, and enrolled among the
gods.1 Surely he would desire that his mother should enjoy
such felicity were it possible. But if we proceeded to ask
him whether, among the honours paid to her, h^ would wish
such shameful rites as these to be celebrated, would he not at
once exclaim that he would rather his mother lay stone-dead,
than survive as a goddess to lend her ear to these obscenities ?
Is it possible that he who was of so severe a morality, that
he used his influence as a Roman senator to prevent the
building of a theatre in that city dedicated to the manly
virtues, would wish his mother to be propitiated as a goddess
with words which would have brought the blush to her cheek
when a Roman matron ? Could he possibly believe that the
modesty of an estimable woman would be so transformed by
her promotion to divinity, that she would suffer herself to be
invoked and celebrated in terms so gross and immodest, that
if she had heard the like while alive upon earth, and had
listened without stopping her ears and huriying from the
spot, her relatives, her husband, and her children would have
1 See Cicero, De Nat . Dear. ii. 24.

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blushed for her? Therefore, the mother of the gods being
such a character as the most profligate man would be ashamed
to have for his mother, and meaning to enthral the minds of
the Eomans, demanded for her service their best citizen, nofc
to ripen him still more in virtue by her helpful counsel, bufc
to entangle him by her deceit, like her of whom it is written,
“ The adulteress will hunt for the precious souL”1 Her intent
was to puff up this high-souled man by an apparently divine
testimony to his excellence, in order that he might rely upon
his own eminence in virtue^ and make no further efforts after
true piety and religion/without which_ natural genius, however
brilliant, vapours" into pride"and^comes to nothing. For what
but a guileful purpose could that goddess demand the best
man, seeing that in her own sacred festivals she requires such
obscenities as the best men would be covered with shame to
hear at their own tables ?

6. That the gods of the pagans never inculcated holiness qf life.

This is the reason why those divinities quite neglected the
lives and morals of the cities and nations who worshipped
them, and threw no dreadful prohibition in their way to
hinder them from becoming utterly corrupt, and to preserve
them from those terrible and detestable evils which visit not
harvests and vintages, not house and possessions, not the body
which is subject to the soul, but the soul itself, the spirit that
rules the whole man. If there was any such prohibition, let
it be produced, let it be proved. They will tell us that purity
and probity were inculcated upon those who were initiated in
the mysteries of religion, and that secret incitements to virtue
were whispered in the ear of the Hite; but this is an idle
boast. Let them show or name to us the places which were
at any time consecrated to assemblages in which, instead of
the obscene songs and licentious acting of players, instead of
the celebration of those most filthy and shameless Fugalia*

1 Prov. vi. 26.

* Fugalia. Vives is uncertain to what feast Augustine refers. Censorinus
understands him to refer to a feast celebrating the expulsion of the kings from
Rome. This feast, however (celebrated on the 24th February), was commonly
called “Regifugium.”

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*

(well called Fugalia, since they banish modesty and right
feeling), the people were commanded in the name of the gods
to restrain avarice, bridle impurity, and conquer ambition;
where, in short, they might learn in that school which Persius
vehemently lashes them to, when he says: "Be taught, ye
abandoned creatures, and ascertain the causes of things ; what
we are, and for what end we are bom ; what is the law of
our success in life, and by what art we may turn the goal
without making shipwreck ; what limit we should put to our
wealth, what we may lawfully desire, and what uses filthy
lucre serves ; how much we should bestow upon our country
and our family ; learn, in short, what God meant thee to be,
and what place He has ordered you to fill”1 Let them name
to us the places where such instructions were wont to be
communicated from the gods, and where the people who wor-
shipped them were accustomed to resort to hear them, as we
can point to our churches built for this purpose in every land
where the Christian religion is received.

7. That the suggestions of philosophers are precluded from having any moral
effect, because they have not the authority which belongs to divine instruc-
tion, and because man's natural bias to evil induces him rather to follow
the examples of the gods than to obey the precepts of men.

But will they perhaps remind us of the schools of the
philosophers, and their disputations ? In the first place, these
belong not to Home, but to Greece ; and even if we yield to
them that they are now Homan, because Greece itself has
become a Roman province, still the teachings of the philoso-
phers are not the commandments of the gods, but the dis-
coveries of men, who, at the prompting of their own speculative
ability, made efforts to discover the hidden laws of nature, and
the right and wrong in ethics, and in dialectic what was con-
sequent according to the rules of logic, and what was incon-
sequent and erroneous. And some of them, by God’s help,
made great discoveries; but when left to themselves they
were betrayed by human infirmity, and fell into mistakes. And
this was ordered by divine providence, that their pride might
be restrained, and that by their example it might be pointed ,
out that it is humility which has access to the highest regions.

1 Persius, Sat, iii. 66-72.

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But of this we shall have more to say, if the Lord God of
truth permit, in its own place.1 However, if the philosophers
have made any discoveries which are sufficient to guide men
to virtue and blessedness, would it not have been greater
justice to vote divine honours to them ? Were it not more
accordant with every virtuous sentiment to read Plato’s writ-
ings in a “ Temple of Plato,” than to be present in the temples
of devils to witness the priests of Cybele 2 mutilating them-
selves, the effeminate being consecrated, the raving fanatics
cutting themselves, and whatever other cruel or shameful, or
shamefully cruel or cruelly shameful, ceremony is enjoined by
the ritual of such gods as these ? Were it not a more suitable
education, and more likely to prompt the youth to virtue, if
they heard public recitals of the laws of the gods, instead of
the vain laudation of the customs and laws of their ancestors?
Certainly all the worshippers of the Eoman gods, when once
they are possessed by what Persius calls “the burning poison
of lust,” 8 prefer to witness the deeds of Jupiter rather than to
hear what Plato taught or Cato censured. Hence the young
profligate in Terence, when he sees on the wall a fresco re-
presenting the fabled descent of Jupiter into the lap of Danae
in the form of a golden shower, accepts this as authoritative
precedent for his own licentiousness, and boasts that he is an
imitator of God. “And what God?” he says. “He who
with His thunder shakes the loftiest temples. And was I, a
poor creature compared to Him, to make bones of it ? No ;
I did it, and with all my heart.” 4

1 See below, boobs viii.-xii.

1 “Galli,” tLe castrated priests of Cybele, who were named after the river
Gallos, iii Phrygia, the water of which was supposed to intoxicate or madden
those who drank it. According to Vitruvius (viiL S), there was a similar foun-
tain in Paphlagonia. Apuleius ( Golden Am, viii.) gives a graphic and
humorous description of the dress, dancing, and imposture of these priests ;
mentioning, among other things, that they lashed themselves with whips and
cut themselves with knives till the ground was wet with blood.

3 Persius, Sat. iii. 87.

4 Ter. Bun. iii. 5. 86 ; and cf. the similar allusion in Aristoph. Clouds,
1088-4. It may be added that the argument of this chapter was largely used
by the wiser of the heathen themselves. Dionysius HaL (ii. 20) and Seneca
(De Brev . VU. c. xvi.) make the very same complaint ; and it will be re-
membered that his adoption of this reasoning was one of the grounds on which
Euripides was suspected of atheism.

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8. Thai the theatrical exhibitions publishing the shameful actions of the gods ,

propitiated rather than offended them.

But, some one will interpose, these are the fables of poets,
not the deliverances of the gods themselves. Well, I have
no mind to arbitrate between the lewdness of theatrical enter-
tainments and of mystic rites ; only this I say, and history
bears me out in making the assertion, that those same enter-
tainments, in which the fictions of poets are the main attrac-
tion, were not introduced in the festivals of the gods by the
ignorant devotion of the Romans, but that the gods themselves
gave the most urgent commands to this effect, and indeed ex-
torted from the Romans these solemnities and celebrations in
their honour. I touched on this in the preceding book, and
mentioned that dramatic entertainments were first inaugurated
at Rome on occasion of a pestilence, and by authority of the
pontiff. And what man is there who is not more likely to
adopt, for the regulation of his own life, the examples that are
represented in plays which have a divine sanction, rather than
the precepts written and promulgated with no more than
human authority ? If the poets gave a false representation
of Jove in describing him as adulterous, then it were to be ex-
pected that the chaste gods should in anger avenge so wicked
a fiction, in place of encouraging the games which circulated
it Of these plays, the most inoffensive are comedies and
tragedies, that is to say, the dramas which poets write for
the stage, and which, though they often handle impure subjects,
yet do so without the filthiness of language which charac-
terizes many other performances ; and it is these dramas which
boys are obliged by their seniors to read and learn as a part
of what is called a liberal and gentlemanly education.1

9. Thai the poetical licence which the Greeks , in obedience to their gods , allowed \

was restrained by the ancient Remans.

The opinion of the ancient Romans on this matter is
attested by Cicero in his work De Republica, in which Scipio,|
one of the interlocutors, says, “ The lewdness of comedy could
never have been suffered by audiences, unless the customs of
society had previously sanctioned the same lewdness.” And

1 This sentence recalls Augustine’s own experience as a boy, which he bewails
in his Confessions.

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in the earlier days the Greeks preserved a certain reasonable-
ness in their licence, and made it a law, that whatever comedy
wished to say of any one, it must say it of him by name.
And so in the same work of Cicero’s, Scipio says, “ Whom
has it not aspersed ? Nay, whom has it not worried ? Whom
has it spared? Allow that it may assail demagogues and
factions, men injurious to the commonwealth — a Cleon, a Cleo-
phon, a Hyperbolus. That is tolerable, though it had been
more seemly for the public censor to brand such men, than
for a poet to lampoon them; but to blacken the fame of
Pericles with scurrilous verse, after he had with the utmost
dignity presided over their state alike in war and in peace,
was as unworthy of a poet, as if our own Plautus or Naevius
were to bring Publius and Cneius Scipio on the comic stage, or
as if Caecilius were to caricature Cato.” And then a little after
he goes on : “ Though our Twelve Tables attached the penalty
of death only to a very, few offences, yet among these few this
was one : if any man should have sung a pasquinade, or have
composed a satire calculated to bring infamy or disgrace on
another person. Wisely decreed. For it is by the decisions
of magistrates, and by a well-informed justice, that our lives
ought to be judged, and not by the flighty fancies of poets ;
neither ought we to be exposed to hear calumnies, save where
we have the liberty of replying, and defending ourselves before
an adequate tribunal” This much I have judged it advisable
to quote from the fourth book of Cicero’s Be Republica ; and
I have made the quotation word for word, with the exception
of some words omitted, and some slightly transposed, for the
sake of giving the sense more readily. And certainly the
extract is pertinent to the matter I am endeavouring to ex-
plain. Cicero makes some further remarks, and concludes
the passage by showing that the ancient Romans did not
permit any living man to be either praised or blamed on the
stage. But the Greeks, as I said, though not so moral, were
more logical in allowing this licence which the Romans for-
bade : for they saw that their gods approved and enjoyed the
scurrilous language of low comedy when directed not only
against men, but even against themselves ; and this, whether
the infamous actions imputed to them were the fictions of

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poets, or were their actual iniquities commemorated and acted
in the theatres. And would that the spectators had judged
them worthy only of laughter, and not of imitation ! Mani- .
festly it had been a stretch of pride to spare the good name
of the leading men and the common citizens, when the very
deities did not grudge that their own reputation should be
blemished.

10. That the devils, in suffering either false or true crimes to he laid to their
charge , meant to do men a mischief.

It is alleged, in excuse of this practice, that the stories told
of the gods are not true, but false, and mere inventions ; but
this only makes matters worse, if we form our estimate by
the morality our religion teaches ; and if we consider the
malice of the devils, what more wily and astute artifice could
they practise upon men ? When a slander is uttered against
a leading statesman of upright and useful life, is it not repre-
hensible in proportion to its untruth . and groundlessness ?
What punishment, then, shall he sufficient when the gods are
the objects of so wicked and outrageous an injustice ? But
the devils, whom these men repute gods, are content that even
iniquities they are guiltless of should be ascribed to them, so
long as they may entangle men’s minds in the meshes of these
opinions, and draw them on along with themselves to their
predestinated punishment : whether such things were actu-
ally committed hy the men whom these devils, delighting in
human infatuation, cause to be worshipped as gods, and in
whose stead they, by a thousand malign and deceitful artifices,
substitute themselves, and so receive worship ; or whether,
though they were really the crimes of men, these wicked
spirits gladly allowed them to be attributed to higher beings,
that there might seem to be conveyed from heaven itself a
sufficient sanction for the perpetration of shameful wickedness.
The Greeks, therefore, seeing the character of the gods they
served, thought that the poets should certainly not refrain
from showing up human vices on the stage, either because
they desired to be like their gods in this, or because they were
afraid that, if they required for themselves a more unblemished
reputation than they asserted for the gods, they might provoke
them to anger.

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11. That the Greeks admitted players to offices of state, on the ground that men

who pleased the gods should not he contemptuously treated by their fellow*.

It was a part of this same reasonableness of the Greeks
which induced them to bestow upon the actors of these same
plays no inconsiderable civic honours. In the above-men-
tioned book of the De Repvblica , it is mentioned that JEschines,
a very eloquent Athenian, who had been a tragic actor in his
youth, became a statesman, and that the Athenians again and
again sent another tragedian, Aristodemus, as their plenipo-
tentiary to Philip. For they judged it unbecoming to con-
demn and treat as infamous persons those who were the chief
actors in the scenic entertainments which they saw to be so
pleasing to the gods. No doubt this was immoral of the
Greeks, but there can be as little doubt they acted in con-
formity with the character of their gods ; for how could they
have presumed to protect the conduct of the citizens from
being cut to pieces by the tongues of poets and players, who
were allowed, and even enjoined by the gods, to tear their
divine reputation to tatters ? And how could they hold in
contempt the men who acted in the theatres those dramas
which, as they had ascertained, gave pleasure to the gods
whom they worshipped ? Nay, how could they but grant to
them the highest civic honours ? On what plea could they
honour the priests who offered for them acceptable sacrifices
to the gods, if they branded with infamy the actors who in
behalf of the people gave to the gods that pleasure or honour
which they demanded, and which, according to the account of
the priests, they were angry at not receiving ? Labeo,1 whose
learning makes him an authority on such points, is of opinion
that the distinction between good and evil deities should find
expression in a difference of worship ; that the evil should be
propitiated by bloody sacrifices and doleful rites, but the good
with a joyful and pleasant observance, as, e.g. (as he says him-
self), with plays, festivals, and banquets* All this we shall,

1 Labeo, a jurist of the time of Augustus, learned in law and antiquities,
and the author of several works much prized by his own and some succeeding
ages. The two articles in Smith’s Dictionary on Antistius and Cornelius
Labeo should be read.

* “ Lee tis tern ia,” feasts in which the images of the gods were laid on pillows
in the streets, and all kinds ol food set before them.

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with God’s help, hereafter discuss. At present, and speaking
to the subject on hand, whether all kinds of offerings are made
indiscriminately to all the gods, as if all were good (and it is
an unseemly thing to conceive that there are evil gods ; but
these gods of the pagans are all evil, because they are not gods,
but evil spirits), or whether, as Labeo thinks, a distinction is
made between the offerings presented to the different gods,
the Greeks are equally justified in honouring alike the priests
by whom the sacrifices are offered, and the players by whom
the dramas are acted, that they may not be open to the charge
of doing an injury to all their gods, if the plays are pleasing
to all of them, or (which were still worse) to their good gods,
if the plays are relished only by them.

12. That the Romans , by refusing to the poets the same licence m respect of men
which they allowed them in the case of the godsf showed a more delicate
sensitiveness regarding themselves than regarding the gods.

The Romans, however, as Scipio boasts in that same dis-
cussion, declined having their conduct and good name subjected
to the assaults and slanders of the poets, and went so far as
to make it a capital crime if any one should dare to compose
such verses. This was a very honourable course to pursue, so
far as they themselves were concerned, but in respect of the
gods it was proud and irreligious : for they knew that the
gods not only tolerated, but relished, being lashed by the in-
jurious expressions of the poets, and yet they themselves would
not suffer this same handling ; and what their ritual prescribed
,as acceptable to the gods, their law prohibited as injurious to,
^themselves. How then, Scipio, do you praise the Romans for
refusing this licence to the poets, so that no citizen could be
calumniated, while you know that the gods were not included
under this protection ? Do you count your senate-house
worthy of so much higher a regard than the Capitol ? Is the
one city of Rome more valuable in your eyes than the whole
heaven of gods, that you prohibit your poets from uttering
any injurious words against a citizen, though they may with
impunity cast what imputations they please upon the gods,
without the interference of senator, censor, prince, or pontiff ?
It was, forsooth, intolerable that Plautus or Naevius should
attack Publius and Cneius Scipio, insufferable that Caecilius

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tr

u. gj10i;Q(j lampoon Cato ; but quite proper that your Terence
*\j should encourage youthful lust by the wicked example of
]j2 St LjUcIa , supreme Jove.

^ "" v 13. That the Romans should have understood that gods \ oho desired to he wor-

shipped in licentious entertainments were unworthy of divine honour .

But Scipio, were he alive, would possibly reply: “ How
could we attach a penalty to that which the gods themselves
have consecrated ? For the theatrical entertainments in which
such things are said, and acted, and performed, were intro-
duced into Roman society by the gods, who ordered that they
should be dedicated and exhibited in their honour.” But was
not this, then, the plainest proof that they were no true gods,
nor in any respect worthy of receiving divine honours from
the republic ? Suppose they had required that in their
honour the citizens of Rome should be held up to ridicule,
every Roman would have resented the hateful proposal. How*
then, I would ask, can they be esteemed worthy of worship,
when they propose that their own crimes be used as material
for celebrating their praises ? Does not this artifice expose
them, and prove that they are detestable devils ? Thus the
Romans, though they were superstitious enough to serve as
gods those who made no secret of their desire to be worshipped
in licentious plays, yet had sufficient regard to their hereditary
dignity and virtue, to prompt them to refuse to players any
such rewards as the Greeks accorded them. On this point
we have this testimony of Scipio, recorded in Cicero : “ They
[the Romans] considered comedy and all theatrical perform-
ances as disgraceful, and therefore not only debarred players
from offices and honours open to ordinary citizens, but also
decreed that their names should be branded by the censor, and
erased from the roll of their tribe.” An excellent decree, and
another testimony to the sagacity of Rome ; but I could wish
their prudence had been more thoroughgoing and consistent.
For when I hear that if any Roman citizen chose the stage as
his profession, he not only closed to himself every laudable
career, but even became an outcast from his own tribe, I cannot
but exclaim : This is the true Roman spirit, this is worthy of
a state jealous of its reputation. But then some one interrupts
my rapture, by inquiring with what consistency players are

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debarred from all honours, while plays are counted among the
honours due to the gods ? For a long while the virtue of
Rome was uncontaminated by theatrical exhibitions j1 and if
they had been adopted for the sake of gratifying the taste of
the citizens, they would have been introduced hand in hand
with the relaxation of manners. But the fact is, that it was
the gods who demanded that they should be exhibited to
gratify them. With what justice, then, is the player excom-
municated by whom God is worshipped ? On what pretext
can you at once adore him who exacts, and brand him who
acts these plays ? This, then, is the controversy in which the
Greeks and Romans are engaged. The Greeks think they
justly honour players, because they worship the gods who
demand plays : the Romans, on the other hand, do not suffer
an actor to disgrace by his name his own plebeian tribe, far
less the senatorial order. And the whole of this discussion^
may be summed up in the following syllogism. The Greeks
give us the major premiss : If such gods are to be worshipped,
then certainly such men may be honoured. The Romans add
the minor : But such men must by no means be honoured.
The Christians draw the conclusion : Therefore such gods must J'
by no means be worshipped.

14. That Plato , who excluded poets from a well-ordered city , was better than
these gods who desire to be honoured by theatrical plays .

We have still to inquire why the poets who write the
plays, and who by the law of the twelve tables are prohibited
from injuring the good name of the citizens, are reckoned more
estimable than the actors, though they so shamefully asperse Ir
the character of the gods ? Is it right that the actors of these
poetical and God-dishonouring effusions be branded, while
their authors are honoured ? Must we not here award the
palm to a Greek, Plato, who, in framing his ideal republic,*
conceived that poets should be banished from the city as*/"
enemies of the state ? He could not brook that the gods, be

1 According to Livy (viL 2), theatrical exhibitions were introduced in the
year 392 A.u.o. Before that time, he says, there had only been the games of the
circus. The Romans sent to Etruria for players, who were called “ histrionea,”
“bister” being the Tuscan word for a player. Other particulars are added
by Livy.

* See the Republic , book iii.

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brought into disrepute, nor that the minds of the citizens be
depraved and besotted, by the fictions of the poets. Compare
now human nature as you see it in Plato, expelling poets
from the city that the citizens be uninjured, with the divine
nature as you see it in these gods exacting plays in their
own honour. Plato strove, though unsuccessfully, to persuade
the light-minded and lascivious Greeks to abstain from so
much as writing such plays ; the gods used their authority to
extort the acting of the same from the dignified and sober-
minded Eomans. And not content with having them acted,
they had them dedicated to themselves, consecrated to them-
selves, solemnly celebrated in their own honour. To which,
then, would it be more becoming in a state to decree divine
honours, — to Plato, who prohibited these wicked and licentious
plays, or to the demons who delighted in blinding men to the
truth of what Plato unsuccessfully sought to inculcate ?

This philosopher, Plato, has been elevated by Labeo to the
rank of a demigod, and set thus upon a level with such as
^Hercules and Romulus. Labeo ranks demigods higher than
(heroes, but both he counts among the deities, But I have no
doubt that he thinks this man whom he reckons a demigod
worthy of greater respect not only than the heroes, but also
than the gods themselves. The laws of the Romans and the
speculations of Plato have this resemblance, that the latter
pronounces a wholesale condemnation of poetical fictions,
while the former restrain the licence of satire, at least so far
as men are the objects of it Plato will not suffer poets
even to dwell in his city : the laws of Rome prohibit actors
from being enrolled as citizens ; and if they had not feared to
offend the gods who had asked the services of the players, they
would in all likelihood have banished them altogether. It is
obvious, therefore, that the Romans could not receive, nor
reasonably expect to receive, laws for the regulation of their
conduct from their gods, since the laws they themselves enacted
far surpassed and put to shame the morality of the gods. The
gods demand stage-plays in their own honour; the Romans
exclude the players from all civic honours:1 the former
commanded that they should be celebrated by the scenic repre-
l Comp. Tertullian, Dt Sptdac. c. 22.

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8entation of their own disgrace ; the latter commanded that
no poet should dare to blemish the reputation of any citizen.
But that demigod Plato resisted the lust of such gods as
these, and showed the Romans what their genius had left
incomplete ; for he absolutely excluded poets from his ideal
state, whether they composed fictions with no regard to truth,
or set the worst possible examples before wretched men
under the guise of divine actions. We for our part, indeed,^
^reckon Plato neither a god nor a demigod; we would not
/even compare him to any of God’s holy angels, nor to thej
t truth-speaking prophets, nor to any of the apostles or martyrs \
| of Christ, nay, not to any faithful Christian man. The reason
of this opinion of ours we will, God prospering us, render in
its own place. Nevertheless, since they wish him to be con-
sidered a demigod, we think he certainly is more entitled
to that rank, and is every way superior, if not to Hercules
and Romulus (though no historian could ever narrate nor any
poet sing of him that he had killed his brother, or committed
any crime), yet certainly to Priapus, or a Cynocephalus,1 or
the Fever,2 * * * *— divinities whom the Romans have partly received
from foreigners, and partly consecrated by home-grown rites.
How, then, could gods such as these be expected to promulgate
good and wholesome laws, either for the prevention of moral
and social evils, or for their eradication where they had already
sprung up ? — gods who used their influence even to sow and*
cherish profligacy, by appointing that deeds truly or falsely
ascribed to them should be published to the people by means
of theatrical exhibitions, and by thus gratuitously fanning the
flame of human lust with the breath of a seemingly divine^
approbation. In vain does Cicero, speaking of poets, exclaim
against this state of things in these words: "When the
plaudits and acclamation of the people, who sit as infallible
judges, are won by the poets, what darkness benights the
mind, what fears invade, what passions inflame it ! ” 8

1 The Egyptian gods represented with dogs’ heads, called by Lacan (viii. 832)

rnnioanes deo *.

* The Fever had, according to Vivea, three altars in Rome. See Cicero, Dt

XaL Dear. iii. 25, and Aflian, Far. Hist xii. 11.

* Cicero, De Rcpublica, v. Compare the third Tusadan Qua$L c. ii.

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Ix'n.

* . V •

15. That it was vanity , not reason, which created some of the Roman gods.

But is it not manifest that vanity rather than reason regu-
lated the choice of some of their false gods? This Plato,
whom they reckon a demigod, and who used all his eloquence
to preserve men from the most dangerous spiritual calamities,
has yet not been counted worthy even of a little shrine ; but
Romulus, because they can call him their own, they have
[ esteemed more highly than many gods, though their secret doc-
, trine can allow him the rank only of a demigod. To him they
j allotted a flamen, that is to say, a priest of a class so highly
1 esteemed in their religion (distinguished, too, by their conical
mitres), that for only three of their gods were flamens appointed,
— the Flamen Dialis for Jupiter, Martialis for Mars, and Quiri-
nalis for Romulus (for when the ardour of his fellow-citizens
had given Romulus a seat among the gods, they gave him this
new name Quirinus). And thus by this honour Romulus has
been preferred to Neptune and Pluto, # Jupiter’s brothers, and
to Saturn himself, their father. They have assigned the same
/priesthood to serve him as to serve Jove ; and in giving Mars
(the reputed father of Romulus) the same honour, is this
not rather for Romulus’ sake than to honour Mars ?

16. That if the gods had really possessed any regard for righteousness, the
Romans should have received good laws from them, instead of having to
borrow them from other nations.

Moreover, if the Romans had been able to receive a rule of
f life from their gods, they would not have borrowed Solon’s
laws from the Athenians, as they did some years after Rome
was founded; and yet they did not keep them as they
received them, but endeavoured to improve and amend them.1
Although Lycurgus pretended that he was authorized by
Apollo to give laws to the Lacedemonians, the sensible
Romans did not choose to believe this, and were not induced
to borrow laws from Sparta. Numa Pompilius, who succeeded

1 In the year A.u. 299, three ambassadors were sent from Rome to Athens to
copy Solon’s laws, and acquire information about the institutions of Greece.
On their return the Decemviri were appointed to draw up a code ; and finally,
after some tragic interruptions, the celebrated Twelve Tables were accepted as
the fundamental statutes of Roman law {fans ttniversi publici privatique juris).
These were graven on brass, and hung up for public information. Livy, iii.
31-34.

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Komulus in the kingdom, is said to have framed some laws,
which, however, were not sufficient for the regulation of civic
affairs. Among these regulations were many pertaining to
•religious observances, . and yet he is not reported to have
received even these from the gods. With respect, then, to
moral evils, evils of life and conduct, — evils which are so
mighty, that, according to the wisest pagans,1 by them states
are ruined while their cities stand uninjured, — their gods
made not the smallest provision for preserving their worship-
pers from these evils, but, on the contrary, took special pains
to increase them, as we have previously endeavoured to prove.

17. Of the rape of the Sabine women, and other iniquities perpetrated in Rome's

palmiest days.

But possibly we are to find the reason for this neglect of
the Komans by their gods, in the saying of Sallust, that
“ equity and virtue prevailed among the Romans not more by
force of laws than of nature.” * I presume it is to this inborn
equity and goodness of disposition we are to ascribe the rape-
of the Sabine women. What, indeed, could be more equit-
able and virtuous, than to carry off by force, as each man was
fit, and without their parents’ consent, girls who were strangers
and guests, and who had been decoyed and entrapped by the
pretence of a spectacle ! If the Sabines were wrong to deny
their daughters when the Romans asked for them, was it not
a greater wrong in the Romans to carry them off after that
denial? The Romans might more justly have waged war
against the neighbouring nation for having refused their
daughters in marriage when they first sought them, than for
having demanded them back when they had stolen them.
War should have been proclaimed at first: it was then that
Mars should have helped his warlike son, that he might by
force of arms avenge the injury done him by the refusal of
marriage, and might also thus win the women he desired. /
There might have been some appearance of “ right of war ” in
a victor carrying off, in virtue of this right, the virgins who

1 Possibly he refers to Plautus’ Perm, iv. 4. 11-14.

* Sallust, Cat Con. ix. Compare the similar saying of Tacitus regarding
the chastity of the Germans : “ Plusque ibi boni mores valent, quam alibi bone
leges” (Germ. xix.).

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had been without any show of right denied him; whereas

f there was no “ right of peace ” entitling him to carry off those
who were not given to him, and to wage an unjust war with
their justly enraged parents. One happy circumstance was
indeed connected with this act of violence, viz., that though
it was commemorated by the games of the circus, yet even
this did not constitute it a precedent in the city or realm of
Home. If one would find fault with the results of this act, it
must rather be on the ground that the Romans made Romulus
a god in spite of his perpetrating this iniquity; for one cannot
( reproach them with making this deed any kind of precedent
Jfor the rape of women.

Again, I presume it was due to this natural equity and
virtue, that after the expulsion of King Tarquin, whose son had
violated Lucretia, Junius Brutus the consul forced Lucius
Tarquinius Collatinus, Lucretia’s husband and his own col-
league, a good and innocent man, to resign his office and go
into banishment, on the one sole charge that he was of the
name and blood of the Tarquins. This injustice was per-
petrated with the approval, or at least connivance, of the
people, who had themselves raised to the consular office both
Collatinus and Brutus. Another instance of this equity and
virtue is found in their treatment of Marcus Camillus. This
eminent man, after he had rapidly conquered the Veians, at
that time the most formidable of Rome’s enemies, and who
had maintained a ten years’ war, in which the Roman army had
suffered the usual calamities attendant on bad generalship,
after he had restored security to Rome, which* had begun to
tremble for its safety, and after he had taken the wealthiest
city of the enemy, had charges brought against him by the
malice of those that envied his success, and by the insolence
of the tribunes of the people ; and seeing that the city bore
him no gratitude for preserving it, and that he would
certainly be condemned, he went into exile, and even in his
absence was fined 10,000 asses. Shortly after, however, his
ungrateful country had again to seek his protection from the
Gauls. But I cannot now mention all the shameful and
iniquitous acts with which Rome was agitated, when the
aristocracy attempted to subject the people, and the people
resented their encroachments, and the advocates of either party

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were actuated rather by the love of victory than by any equi-
table or virtuous consideration.

18. What the history of Sallust reveals regarding the life qf the Romans, either
when straitened by anxiety or relaxed in security.

I will therefore pause, and adduce the testimony of Sallust
himself, whose words in praise of the Romans (that “ equity
and virtue prevailed among them not more by force of laws
than of nature ”) have given occasion to this discussion. He
was referring to that period immediately after the expulsion
of the kings, in which the city became great in an incredibly
short space of time. And yet this same writer acknowledges
in the first book of his history, in the very exordium of his
work, that even at that time, when a very brief interval
had elapsed after the government had passed from kings to
consuls, the more powerful men began to act unjustly, and
occasioned the defection of the people from the patricians,
and other disorders in the city. For after Sallust had stated
that the Romans enjoyed greater harmony and a purer state
of society between the second and third Punic wars than at
any other time, and that the cause of this was not their love
of good order, but their fear lest the peace they had with
Carthage might be broken (this also, as we mentioned, Nasica
contemplated when he opposed the destruction of Carthage,
for he supposed that fear would tend to repress wickedness,
and to preserve wholesome ways of living), he then goes on to
say : “ Yet, after the destruction of Carthage, discord, avarice,
ambition, and the other vices which are commonly generated
by prosperity, more than ever increased” If they “ increased,”
and that “ more than ever,” then already they had appeared,
and had been increasing. And so Sallust adds this reason for
what he said. “ For,” he says, "the oppressive measures of
the powerful, and the consequent secessions of the plebs from
the patricians, and other civil dissensions, had existed from
the first, and affairs were administered with equity and well-
tempered justice for no longer a period than the short time
after the expulsion of the kings, while the city was occupied
with the serious Tuscan war and Tarquin’s vengeance.” You
see how, even in that brief period after the expulsion of the
kings, fear, he acknowledges, was the cause of the interval of

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equity and good order. They were afraid, in fact, of the war
which Tarquin waged against them, afteV he had been driven
from the throne and the city, and had allied himself ’with the
Tuscans. But observe what he adds : “ After that, the patri-
cians treated the people as their slaves, ordering them to be
scourged or beheaded just as the kings had done, driving
them from their holdings, and harshly tyrannizing over those
who had no property to lose. The people, overwhelmed by
these oppressive measures, and most of all by exorbitant
usury, and obliged to contribute both money and personal
service to the constant wars, at length took arms, and seceded
to Mount Aventine and Mount Sacer, and thus obtained for
themselves tribunes and protective laws. But it was only the
second Punic war that put an end on both sides to discord
and strife.” You see what kind of men the Romans were,
even so early as a few years after the expulsion of the kings ;
and it is of these men he says, that “ equity and virtue pre-
vailed among them not more by force of law than of nature.”

Now, if these were the days in which the Roman republic
shows fairest and best, what are we to say or think of the
succeeding age, when, to use the words of the same historian,
r “ changing little by little from the fair and virtuous city it
J was, it became utterly wicked and dissolute ?” This was, as he
mentions, after the destruction of Carthage. Sallust’s brief
sum and sketch of this period may be read in his own history,
in which he shows how the profligate manners which were
propagated by prosperity resulted at last even in civil wars.
He says : “ And from this time the primitive manners, instead
of undergoing an insensible alteration as hitherto they had
done, were swept away as by a torrent : the young men were
so depraved by luxury and avarice, that it may justly be said
that no father had a son who could either preserve his own
patrimony, or keep his hands off other men's.” Sallust
adds a number of particulars about the vices of Sylla, and
the debased condition of the republic in general; and other
writers make similar observations, though in much less strik-
ing language.

However, I suppose you now see, or at least any one who
gives his attention has the means of seeing, in what a sink

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of iniquity that city was plunged before the advent of our
heavenly King. For these things happened not only before
Christ had begun to teach, but before He was even bom of
the Virgin. If, then, they dare not impute to their gods the
grievous evils of those former times, more tolerable before the ' .
destruction of Carthage, but intolerable and dreadful after it,
although it was the gods who by their malign craft instilled
into the minds of men the conceptions from which such,
dreadful vices branched out on all sides, why do they impute]
these present calamities to Christ, who teaches life-giving truth,!
and forbids us to worship false and deceitful gods, and whoj
abominating and condemning with His divine authority those-
wicked and hurtful lusts of men, gradually withdraws His]
own people from a world that is corrupted by these vicesj
and is falling into ruins, to make of them an eternal city,
whose glory rests not on the acclamations of vanity, but on
the judgment of truth ?

19. Of the corruption which had grown upon the Roman republic before Christ
abolished the worship of the gods .

Here, then, is this Roman republic, "which has changed
little by little from the fair and virtuous city it was, and has
become utterly wicked and dissolute.” It is not I who am
the first to say this, but their own authors, from whom we
learned it for a fee, and who wrote it long before the coming
of Christ. You see how, before the coming of Christ, and
after the destruction of Carthage, "the primitive manners,
instead of undergoing insensible alteration, as hitherto they had
done, were swept away as by a torrent; and how depraved
by luxury and avarice the youth were.” Let them now, on
their part, read to us any laws given by their gods to the
Roman people, and directed against luxury and avarice. And
would that they had only been silent on the subjects of
chastity and modesty, and had not demanded from the people
indecent and shameful practices, to which they lent a per-
nicious patronage by their so-called divinity. Let them
read our commandments in the Prophets, Gospels, Acts of
the Apostles, or Epistles ; let them peruse the large number
of precepts against avarice and luxury which are everywhere
read to the congregations that meet for this purpose, and

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which strike the ear, not with the uncertain sound of a philo-
sophical discussion, but with the thunder of God’s own oracle
pealing from the clouds. And yet they do not impute to their
gods the luxury and avarice, the cruel and dissolute manners,
that had rendered the republic utterly wicked and corrupt,
even before the coming of Christ; but whatever affliction
their pride and effeminacy have exposed them to in these
latter days, they furiously impute to our religion. If the
kings of the earth and all their subjects, if all princes and
judges of the earth, if young men and maidens, old and
young, every age, and both sexes ; if they whom the Baptist
addressed, the publicans and the soldiers, were all together
to hearken to and observe the precepts of the Christian
religion regarding a just and virtuous life, then should the
republic adorn the whole earth with its own felicity, and
attain in life everlasting to the pinnacle of kingly glory.
But because this man listens, and that man scoffs, and most
are enamoured of the blandishments of vice rather than the
wholesome severity of virtue, the people of Christ, whatever
be their condition — whether they be kings, princes, judges,
soldiers, or provincials, rich or poor, bond or free, male or
female — are enjoined to endure this earthly republic, wicked
and dissolute as it is, that so they may by this endurance
win for themselves an eminent place in that most holy and
august assembly of angels and republic of heaven, in which
the will of God is the law.

20. Of the kind of happiness and life truly delighted in by those who inveigh
against the Christian religion.

But the worshippers and admirers of these gods delight in
imitating their scandalous iniquities, and are nowise con-
cerned that the republic be less depraved and licentious.
Only let it remain undefeated, they say, only let it flourish
and abound in resources ; let it be glorious by its victories, or
still better, secure in peace ; and what matters it to us ?
This is our concern, that every man be able to increase his
wealth so as to supply his daily prodigalities, and so that the
powerful may subject the weak for their own purposes. Let
the poor court the rich for a living, and that under their pro-
tection they may enjoy a sluggish tranquillity ; and let the

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rich abuse the poor as their dependants, to minister to their
pride. Let the people applaud not those who protect their
interests, but those who provide them with pleasure. Let no
severe duty be commanded, no impurity forbidden. Let kings
estimate their prosperity, not by the righteousness, but by the
servility of their subjects. Let the provinces stand loyal to
the kings, not as moral guides, but as lords of their posses-
sions and purveyors of their pleasures ; not with a hearty
reverence, but a crooked and servile fear. Let the laws take
cognizance rather of the injury done to another man’s pro-
perty, than of that done to one’s own person. If a man be a
nuisance to his neighbour, or injure his property, family, or
person, let him be actionable ; but in his own affairs let every
one with impunity do what he will in company with his own
family, and with those who willingly join him. Let there be
a plentiful supply of public prostitutes for every one who
wishes to use them, but specially for those who are too poor
to keep one for their private use. Let there be erected houses
of the largest and most ornate description : in these let there
be provided the most sumptuous banquets, where every one
who pleases may, by day or night, play, drink, vomit,1 dissi-
pate. Let there be everywhere heard the rustling of dancers,
the loud, immodest laughter of the theatre ; let a succession of
the most cruel and the most voluptuous pleasures maintain a
perpetual excitement. If such happiness is distasteful to any,
let him be branded as a public enemy ; and if any attempt to
modify or put an end to it, let him be silenced, banished, put
an end to. Let these be reckoned the true gods, who procure
for the people this condition of things, and preserve it when
once possessed. Let them be worshipped as they wish ; let
them demand whatever games they please, from or with their
own worshippers ; only let them secure that such felicity be
not imperilled by foe, plague, or disaster of any kind. What
sane man would compare a republic such as this, I will not
say to the Roman empire, but to the palace of Sardanapalus,
the ancient king who was so abandoned to pleasures, that he
caused it to be inscribed on his tomb, that now that he was

1 The same collocation of words is used by Cicero with reference to the well-
known mode of renewing the appetite in nse among the Romans.

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dead, he possessed only those things which he had swallowed
and consumed by his appetites while alive ? If these men
had such a king as this, who, while self-indulgent, should lay
no severe restraint on them, they would more enthusiastically
consecrate to him a temple and a flamen than the ancient
Romans did to Romulus.

21. Cicero's opinion of the Roman republic.

But if our adversaries do not care how foully and disgrace-
fully the Roman republic be stained by corrupt practices, so
long only as it holds together and continues in being, and
if they therefore pooh-pooh the testimony of Sallust to its
"utterly wicked and profligate” condition, what will they
make of Cicero’s statement, that even in his time it had
become entirely extinct, and that there remained extant no
Roman republic at all ? He introduces Scipio (the Scipio
who had destroyed Carthage) discussing the republic, at a time
when already there were presentiments of its speedy ruin by
that corruption which Sallust describes. In fact, at the time
when the discussion took place, one of the Gracchi, who,
according to Sallust, was the first great instigator of seditions,
had already been put to death. His death, indeed, is men-
tioned in the same book. Now Scipio, in the end of the
second book, says : “ As, among the different sounds which pro-
ceed from lyres, flutes, and the human voice, there must be
maintained a certain harmony which a cultivated ear cannot
.endure to hear disturbed or jarring, but which may be elicited
in full and absolute concord by the modulation even of voices
very unlike one another ; so, where reason is allowed to
modulate the diverse elements of the state, there is obtained a
perfect concord from the upper, lower, and middle classes as
from various sounds ; and what musicians call harmony in
singing, is concord in matters of state, which is the strictest
bond and best security of any, republic, and which by no
ingenuity can be retained where justice has become extinct.”
Then, when he had expatiated somewhat more fully, and had
more copiously illustrated the benefits of its presence and the
ruinous effects of its absence upon a state, Pilus, one of the
company present at the discussion, struck in and demanded
that the question should be more thoroughly sifted, and that

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the subject of justice should be freely discussed for the sake
of ascertaining what truth there was in the maxim which was
then becoming daily more current, that “ the republic cannot
be governed without injustice.” Scipio expressed his willing-
ness to have this maxim discussed and sifted, and gave it as
his opinion that it was baseless, and that no progress could be
made in discussing the republic unless it was established, not
only that this maxim, that " the republic cannot be governed
without injustice,” was false, but also that the truth is, that it
cannot be governed without the most absolute justice. And
the discussion of this question, being deferred till the next
day, is carried on in the third book with great animation.
For Pilus himself undertook to defend the position that the
republic cannot be governed without injustice, at the same
time being at special pains to clear himself of any real parti-
cipation in that opinion. He advocated with great keenness
the cause of injustice against justice, and endeavoured by
plausible reasons and examples to demonstrate that the former
is beneficial, the latter useless, to the republic. Then, at the
request of the company, Lselius attempted to defend justice,
and strained every nerve to prove that nothing is so hurtful
to a state as injustice ; and that without justice a republic
can neither be governed, nor even continue to exist.

When this question has been handled to the satisfaction of
the company, Scipio reverts to the original thread of discourse,
and repeats with commendation his own brief definition of a
republic, that it is the weal of the people. “ The people” he
defines as being not every assemblage or mob, but an assem-
blage associated by a common acknowledgment of law, and by
a community of interests. Then he shows the use of defini-
tion in debate ; and from these definitions of his own he
gathers that a republic, or “ weal of the people,” then exists
only when it is well and justly governed, whether by a
monarch, or an aristocracy, or by the whole people. But
when the monarch is unjust, or, as the Greeks say, a tyrant ;
or the aristocrats are unjust, and form a faction; or the
people themselves are unjust, and become, as Scipio for want
of a better name calls them, themselves the tyrant, then the
republic is not only blemished (as had been proved the day

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before), but by legitimate deduction from those definitions, it
altogether ceases to be. For it could not be the people’s weal
when a tyrant factiously lorded it over the state; neither
would the people be any longer a people if it were unjust,
since it would no longer answer the definition of a people —
" an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of
law, and by a community of interests.”

When, therefore, the Koman republic was such as Sallust
described it, it was not "utterly wicked and profligate,” as
he says, but had altogether ceased to exist, if we are to admit
the reasoning of that debate maintained on the subject of
the republic by its best representatives. Tully himself, too,
speaking not in the person of Scipio or any one else, but
uttering his own sentiments, uses the following language in
the beginning of the fifth book, after quoting a line from the
poet Ennius, in which he said, " Rome’s severe morality and
her citizens are her safeguard.” "This verse,” says Cicero,
" seems to me to have all the sententious truthfulness of an
oracle. For neither would the citizens have availed without
the morality of the community, nor would the morality of the
commons without outstanding men have availed either to
establish or so long to maintain in vigour so grand a republic
with so wide and just an empire. Accordingly, . before our
day, the hereditary usages formed our foremost men, and they
on their part retained the usages and institutions of their
fathers. But our age, receiving the republic as a chef ~cC oeuvre
of another age which has already begun to grow old, has not
merely neglected to restore the colours of the original, but has
not even been at the pains to preserve so much as the general
outline and most outstanding features. For what survives
of that primitive morality which the poet called Rome’s safe-
guard ? It is so obsolete and forgotten, that, far from prac-
tising it, one does not even know it. And of the citizens what
shall I say ? Morality has perished through poverty of great
men ; a poverty for which we must not only assign a reason,
but for the guilt of which we must answer as criminals charged
with a capital crime. For it is through our vices, and not by
any mishap, that we retain only the name of a republic, and
have long since lost the reality.”

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This is the confession of Cicero, long indeed after the death
of Africanns, whom he introduced as an interlocutor in his
work De Republica , but still before the coining of Christ. Yet,
if the disasters he bewails had been lamented after the Chris-
tian religion had been diffused, and had begun to prevail, is
there a man of our adversaries who would not have thought
that they were to be imputed to the Christians ? Why, then,
did their gods not take steps then to prevent the decay and
extinction of that republic, over the loss of which Cicero, long
before Christ had come in the flesh, sings so lugubrious a
dirge ? Its admirers have need to inquire whether, even in
the days of primitive men and morals, true justice flourished
in it ; or was it not perhaps even then, to use the casual ex-
pression of Cicero, rather a coloured painting than the living
reality ? But, if God will, we shall consider this elsewhere.

For I mean in its own place to show that — according to the
definitions in which Cicero himself, using Scipio as his mouth-
piece, briefly propounded what a republic is, and what a
people is, and according to many testimonies, both of his own
lips and of those who took part in that same debate — Borne
never was a republic, because true justice had never a place
in it. But accepting the more feasible definitions of a republic,

.1 grant there was a republic of a certain kind, and certainly
much better administered by the more ancient Komans than
by their modem representatives. But the fact is, true justice n/
has no existence save in that republic whose founder and
ruler is Christ, if at least any choose to call this a republic ;
and indeed we cannot deny that it is the people’s weal. But
if perchance this name, which has become familiar in other
connections, be considered alien to our common parlance, we
may at all events say that in this city is true justice ; the city
of which Holy Scripture says, "Glorious things are said of
thee, 0 city of God.”

22. That the Roman gods never tools any steps to prevent the republic from being
ruined by immorality.

But what is relevant to the present question is this, that
however admirable our adversaries say the republic was or is,
it is certain that by the testimony of their own most learned

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writers it had become, long before the coming of Christ,
utterly wicked and dissolute, and indeed had no existence,
but had been destroyed by profligacy. To prevent this, surely
these guardian gods ought to have given precepts of morals
and a rule of life to the people by whom they were wor-
shipped in so many temples, with so great a variety of priests
and sacrifices, with such numberless and diverse rites, so
many festal solemnities, so many celebrations of magnificent
games. But in all this the demons only looked after their
own interest, and cared not at all how their worshippers lived,
or rather were at pains to induce them to lead an abandoned
life, so long as they paid these tributes to their honour, and
regarded them with fear. If any one denies this, let him
produce, let him point to, let him read the laws which the
gods had given against sedition, and which the Gracchi trans-
gressed when they threw everything into confusion ; or those
Marius, and Cinna, and Carbo broke when they involved their
country in civil wars, most iniquitous and unjustifiable in their
causes, cruelly conducted, and yet more cruelly terminated ; or
those which Sylla scorned, whose life, character, and deeds, as
described by Sallust and other historians, are the abhorrence
of all mankind. Who will deny that at that time the
republic had become extinct ?

Possibly they will be bold enough to suggest in defence
of the gods, that they abandoned the city on account of the
profligacy of the citizens, according to the lines of Virgil :

“ Gone from each fane, each sacred shrine,

Are those who made this realm divine.” 1

But, firstly, if it be so, then they cannot complain against the
Christian religion, as if it were that which gave offence to
the gods and caused them to abandon Home, since the Roman
V immorality had long ago driven from the altars of the city a
cloud of little gods, like as many flies. And yet where was
this host of divinities, when, long before the corruption of the
primitive morality, Rome was taken and burnt by the Gauls ?
v Perhaps they were present, but asleep ? For at that time the
whole city fell into the hands of the enemy, with the single
exception of the Capitoline hill ; and this too would have been
1 JSneid , ii. 351-2.

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taken, had not — the watchful geese aroused the sleeping gods !
And this gave occasion to the festival of the goose, in which
Rome sank nearly to the superstition of the Egyptians, who
worship beasts and birds. But of these adventitious evils
which are inflicted by hostile armies or by some disaster, and
which attach rather to the body than the soul, I am not
meanwhile disputing. At present I speak of the decay of
morality, which at first almost imperceptibly lost its brilliant
hue, but afterwards was wholly obliterated, was swept away as
by a torrent, and involved the republic in such disastrous
ruin, that though the houses and walls remained standing,
the leading writers do not scruple to say that the republic
was destroyed. Now, the departure of the gods “ from each
fane, each sacred shrine,” and their abandonment of the city
to destruction, was an act of justice, if their laws inculcating
justice and a moral life had been held in contempt by that
city. But what kind of gods were these, pray, who declined
to live with a people who worshipped them, and whose
conupt life they had done nothing to reform ?

23. That the vicissitudes of this life are dependent not on (he favour or hostility
of demons t but on the trill qf the true Ood.

But, further, is it not obvious that the gods have abetted the
fulfilment of men’s desires, instead of authoritatively bridling
them ? For Marius, a low-born and self-made man, who ruth-
lessly provoked and conducted civil wars, was so effectually
aided by them, that he was seven times consul, and died
full of years in his seventh consulship, escaping the hands of
Sylla, who immediately afterwards came into power. Why,
then, did they not also aid him, so as to restrain him from so
many enormities ? * For if it is said that the gods had no
hand in his success, this is no trivial admission, that <a man
can attain the dearly coveted felicity of this life even though
his own gods be not propitious ; that men can be loaded with
the gifts of fortune as Marius was, can enjoy health, power,
wealth, honours, dignity, length of days, though the gods be
hostile to him ; and that, on the other hand, men can be tor-
mented as Regulus was, with captivity, bondage, destitution,
watchings, pain, and cruel death, though the gods be his friends.

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To concede this is to make a compendious confession that the
gods are useless, and their worship superfluous. If the gods
have taught the people rather what goes clean counter to the
virtues of the soul, and that integrity of life which meets a
reward after death ; if even in respect of temporal and transitory
blessings they neither hurt those whom they hate nor profit
whom they love, why are they worshipped, why are they invoked
with such eager homage ? Why do men murmur in difficult
and sad emergencies, as if the gods had retired in anger ? and
why, on their account, is the Christian religion injured by the
most unworthy calumnies ? If in temporal matters they have
power either for good or for evil, why did they stand by Marius,
the worst of Rome’s citizens, and abandon Regulus, the best ?
Does this not prove themselves to be most unjust and wicked ?
And even if it be supposed that for this very reason they are
the rather to be feared and worshipped, this is a mistake ; for
we do not read that Regulus worshipped them less assiduously
than Marius. Neither is it apparent that a wicked life is to
be chosen, on the ground that the gods are supposed to have
favoured Marius more than Regulus. For Metellus, the
most highly esteemed of all the Romans, who had five sons
in the consulship, was prosperous even in this life; and
Catiline, the worst of men, reduced to poverty and defeated
in the war his own guilt had aroused, lived and perished
miserably. Real and secure felicity is the peculiar possession
of those who worship that God by whom alone it can be
conferred.

It is thus apparent, that when the republic was being
destroyed by profligate manners, its gods did nothing to
hinder its destruction by the direction or correction of its
manners, but rather accelerated its destruction by increasing
the demoralization and corruption that already existed. They
need not pretend that their goodness was shocked by the
iniquity of the city, and that they withdrew in anger. For
they were there, sure enough ; they are detected, convicted :
they were equally unable to break silence so as to guide
others, and to keep silence so as to conceal themselves. I
do not dwell on the fact that the inhabitants of Mintumse
took pity on Marius, and commended him to the goddess

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Marica in her grove, that she might give him success in
all things, and that from the abyss of despair in which he
then lay he forthwith returned unhurt to Rome, and entered
the city the ruthless leader of a ruthless army; and they
who wish to know how bloody was his victory, how unlike a
citizen, and how much more relentlessly than any foreign foe
he acted, let them read the histories. But this, as I said, I
do not dwell upon ; nor do I attribute the bloody bliss of
Marius to, I know not what Minturnian goddess [Marica], but
rather to the secret providence of God, that the mouths of our
adversaries might be shut, and that they who are not led by
passion, but by prudent consideration of events, might be de-
livered from error. And even if the demons have any power
in these matters, they have only that power which the secret
decree of the Almighty allots to them, in order that we may
not set too great store by earthly prosperity, seeing it is often-
times vouchsafed even to wicked men like Marius ; and that
we may not, on the other hand, regard it as an evil, since,
we see that many good and pious worshippers of the one true
God are, in spite of the demons, pre-eminently successful ;
and, finally, that we may not suppose that these unclean
spirits are either to be propitiated or feared for the sake of
earthly blessings or calamities : for as wicked men on earth
cannot do all they would, so neither can these demons, but
only in so far as they are permitted by the decree of Him
whose judgments are fully comprehensible, justly reprehen-
sible by none.

24. Of the deeds of Sylla, in which the demons boasted that he had their help.

It is certain that Sylla — whose rule was so cruel, that, in
comparison with it, the preceding state of things which he
came to avenge was regretted — when first he advanced towards
Rome to give battle to Marius, found the auspices so favour-
able when he sacrificed, that, according to Livy’s account, the
augur Postumiu8 expressed his willingness to lose his head if
Sylla did not, with the help of the gods, accomplish what he
designed. The gods, you see, had not departed from “ every
fane and sacred shrine,” since they were still predicting the
issue of these affairs, and yet were taking no steps to correct
Sylla himself. Their presages promised him great prosperity, but

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no threatenings of theirs subdued his evil passions. And then,
when he was in Asia conducting the war against Mithridates,
a message from Jupiter was delivered to him by Lucius Titius,
to the effect that he would conquer Mithridates ; and so it came
to pass. And afterwards, when he was meditating a return
to Rome for the purpose of avenging in tjie blood of the
citizens injuries done to himself and his friends, a second
message from Jupiter was delivered to him by a soldier of
the sixth legion, to the effect that it was he who had predicted
the victory over Mithridates, and that now he promised to give
him power to recover the republic from his enemies, though
with great bloodshed. Sylla at once inquired of the soldier
what form had appeared to him ; and, on his reply, recognised
that it was the same as Jupiter had formerly employed to
convey to him the assurance regarding the victory over Mithri-
dates. How, then, can the gods be justified in this matter
for the care they took to predict these shadowy successes, and
for their negligence in correcting Sylla, and restraining him
from stirring up a civil war so lamentable and atrocious, that it
not merely disfigured, but extinguished, the republic ? The
truth is, as I have often said, and as Scripture informs us, and
as the facts themselves sufficiently indicate, the demons are
found to look after their own ends only, that they may be
regarded and worshipped as gods, and that men may be in-
duced to offer to them a worship which associates them with
their crimes, and involves them in one common wickedness
and judgment of God.

Afterwards, when Sylla had come to Tarentum, and had
sacrificed there, he saw on the head of the victim’s liver the
likeness of a golden crown. Thereupon the same soothsayer
Postumius interpreted this to signify a signal victory, and
ordered that he only should eat of the entrails. A little
afterwards, the slave of a certain Lucius Pontius cried out, “ I
am Bellona’s messenger ; the victory is yours, Sylla !” Then
he added that the Capitol should be burned. As soon as he
had uttered this prediction he left the camp, but returned the
following day more excited than ever, and shouted, “ The Capitol
is fired ! ” And fired indeed it was. This it was easy for a
demon both to foresee and quickly to announce. But observe.

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as relevant to our subject, what kind of gods they are under
whom these men desire to live, who blaspheme the Saviour
that delivers the wills of the faithful from the dominion of
devils. The man cried out in prophetic rapture, “ The victory
is yours, Sylla ! ” And to certify that he spoke by a divine
spirit, he predicted also an event which was shortly to happen,
and which indeed did fall out, in a place from which he in
whom this spirit was speaking was far distant. But he never
cried. Forbear thy villanies, Sylla ! — the villanies which were
committed at Borne by that victor to whom a golden crown
on the caifs liver had been shown as the divine evidence of
his victory. If such signs as this were customarily sent by
just gods, and not by wicked demons, then certainly the en-
trails he consulted should rather have given Sylla intimation
of the cruel disasters that were to befall the city and himself.
For that victory was not so conducive to his exaltation to
power, as it was fatal to his ambition ; for by it he became
so insatiable in his desires, and was rendered so arrogant and
reckless by prosperity, that he may be said rather to have
inflicted a moral destruction on himself than corporal de-
struction on his enemies. But these truly woful and deplor-
able calamities the gods gave him no previous hint of, neither
by entrails, augury, dream, nor prediction. For they feared
his amendment more than his defeat Tea, they took good
care that this glorious conqueror of his own fellow-citizens
should be conquered and led captive by his own infamous
vices, and should thus be the more submissive slave of the
demons themselves.

25. How powerfully the evil spirits incite men to wicked actions , by giving them
the quasi-divine authority of their example .

Now, who does not hereby comprehend, — unless he has
preferred to imitate such gods rather than by divine grace to
withdraw himself from their fellowship, — who does not see
how eagerly these evil spirits strive by their example to lend,
as it were, divine authority to crime ? Is not this proved by
the fact that they were seen in a wide plain in Campania re-
hearsing among themselves the battle which shortly after took
place there with great bloodshed between the armies of Borne ?
For at first there were heard loud crashing noises, and after-

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wards many reported that they had seen for some days to-
gether two armies engaged. And when this battle ceased, they
found the ground all indented with just such footprints of
men and horses as a great conflict would leave. If, then, the
deities were veritably fighting with one another, the civiWars
of men are sufficiently justified ; yet, by the way, let it be ob-
served that such pugnacious gods must be very wicked or very
wretched. If, however, it was but a sham-fight, what did
they intend by this, but that the civil wars of the Romans
should seem no wickedness, but an imitation of the gods ?
For already the civil wars had begun ; and before this, some
lamentable battles and execrable massacres had occurred.
Already many had been moved by the story of the soldier,
who, on stripping the spoils of his slain foe, recognised in the
stripped corpse his own brother, and, with deep curses on civil
wars, slew himself there and then on his brother’s body. To
disguise the bitterness of such tragedies, and kindle increasing
ardour in this monstrous warfare, these malign demons, who
were reputed and worshipped as gods, fell upon this plan of
revealing themselves in a state of civil war, that no com-
punction for fellow-citizens might cause the Romans to shrink
from such battles, but that the human criminality might be
justified by the divine example. By a like craft, too, did these
evil spirits command that scenic entertainments, of which I
have already spoken, should be instituted and dedicated to
them. And in these entertainments the poetical compositions
and actions of the drama ascribed such iniquities to the
gods, that every one might safely imitate them, whether he
believed the gods had actually done such things, or, not be-
lieving this, yet perceived that they most eagerly desired to be
represented as having done them. And that no one might
suppose, that in representing the gods as fighting with one
another, the poets had slandered them, and imputed to them
unworthy actions, the gods themselves, to complete the de-
ception, confirmed the compositions of the poets by exhibiting
their own battles to the eyes of men, not only through actions
in the theatres, but in their own persons on the actual field.

We have been forced to bring forward these facts, because
their authors have not scrupled to say and to write that the

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Roman republic had already been ruined by the depraved
moral habits of the citizens, and had ceased to exist before the
advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now this ruin they do not
impute to their own gods, though they impute to our Christ
the evils of this life, which cannot ruin good men, be they
alive or dead. And this they do, though our Christ has
issued so many precepts inculcating virtue and restraining
vice ; while their own gods have done nothing whatever to
preserve that republic that served them, and to restrain it
from ruin by such precepts, but have rather hastened its
destruction, by corrupting its morality through their pestilent
example. No one, I fancy, will now be bold enough to say
that the republic was then ruined because of the departure
of the gods “ from each fane, each sacred shrine,” as if they
were the friends of virtue, and were offended by the vices of
men. No, there are too many presages from entrails, auguries,
soothsayings, whereby they boastingly proclaimed themselves
prescient of future events and controllers of the fortune of
war, — all which prove them to have been present. And had
they been indeed absent, the Romans would never in these
civil wars have been so far transported by their own passions
as they were by the instigations of these gods.

26. That the demons gave in secret certain obscure instructions in moralst while
in public their own solemnities inculcated ail wickedness .

Seeing that this is so, — seeing that the filthy and cruel
deeds, the disgraceful and criminal actions of the gods, whether
real or feigned, were at their own request published, and were
consecrated, and dedicated in their honour as sacred and
stated solemnities ; seeing they vowed vengeance on those who
refused to exhibit them to the eyes of all, that they might be
proposed as deeds worthy of imitation, why is it that these
same demons, who, by taking pleasure in such obscenities, ac-
knowledge themselves to be unclean spirits, and by delighting
in their own villanies and iniquities, real or imaginary, and by
requesting from the immodest, and extorting from the modest,
the celebration of these licentious acts, proclaim themselves
instigators to a criminal and lewd life ; — why, I ask, are they
represented as giving some good moral precepts to a few of
their own elect, initiated in the secrecy of their shrines ? If

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it be so, this very thing only serves further to demonstrate the
malicious craft of these pestilent spirits. For so great is the
influence of probity and chastity, that all men, or almost all
men, are moved by the praise of these virtues ; nor is any
man so depraved by vice, but he hath some feeling of honour
left in him. So that, unless the devil sometimes transformed
himself, as Scripture says, into an angel of light,1 he could not
compass his deceitful purpose. Accordingly, in public, a bold
impurity fills the ear of the people with noisy clamour ; in
private, a feigned chastity speaks in scarce audible whispers to
a few : an open stage is provided for shameful things, but on
the praiseworthy the curtain falls: grace hides, disgrace flaunts :
a wicked deed draws an overflowing house, a virtuous speech
finds scarce a hearer, as though purity were to be blushed at,
impurity boasted of. Where else can such confusion reign,
but in devils’ temples ? Where, but in the haunts of deceit ?
For the secret precepts are given as a sop to the virtuous,
who are few in number ; the wicked examples are exhibited
to encourage the vicious, who are countless.

Where and when those initiated in the mysteries of Coelestis
received any good instructions, we know not. What we do
know is, that before her shrine, in which her image is set, and
amidst a vast crowd gathering from all quarters, and standing
closely packed together, we were intensely interested spectators
of the games which were going on, and saw, as we pleased to
turn the eye, on this side a grand display of harlots, on the
other the virgin goddess: we saw this virgin worshipped with
prayer and with obscene rites. There we saw no shamefaced
mimes, no actress overburdened with modesty: all that the
obscene rites demanded was fully complied with. We were
plainly shown what was pleasing to the virgin deity, and the
matron who witnessed the spectacle returned home from the
temple a wiser woman. Some, indeed, of the more prudent
women turned their faces from the immodest movements of
the, players, and learned the art of wickedness by a furtive
regard. For they were restrained, by the modest demeanour
due to men, from looking boldly at the immodest gestures; but
much more were they restrained from condemning with chaste

1 2 Cor. XL 14.

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heart the sacred rites of her whom they adored. And yet
this licentiousness — which, if practised in one’s home, could only
be done there in secret — was practised as a public lesson in the
temple; and if any modesty remained in men, it was occupied
in marvelling that wickedness which men could not unre-
strainedly commit should be part of the religious teaching of
the gods, and that to omit its exhibition should incur the
anger of the gods. What spirit can that be, which by a hidden
inspiration stirs men’s corruption, and goads them to adultery,
and feeds on the full-fledged iniquity, unless it be the same that
finds pleasure in such religious ceremonies, sets in the temples
images of devils, and loves to see in play the images of vices ;
that whispers in secret some righteous sayings to deceive the
few who are good, and scatters in public invitations to profligacy,
to gain possession of the millions who are wicked ?

27. That the obscenities of those plays which the Romans consecrated in order
to propitiate their gods , contributed largely to the overthrow of public
order .

Cicero, a weighty man, and a philosopher in his way, when v
about to be made edile, wished the citizens to understand1
that, among the other duties of his magistracy, he must pro-
pitiate Flora by the celebration of games. And these games
are reckoned devout in proportion to their lewdness. In
another place,* and when he was now consul, and the state in
great peril, he says that games had been celebrated for ten
days together, and that nothing had been omitted which could
pacify the gods: as if it had not been more satisfactory to irritate
the gods by temperance, than to pacify them by debauchery;
and to provoke their hate by honest living, than soothe it by
such unseemly grossness. For no matter how cruel was the
ferocity of those men who were threatening the state, and on
whose account the gods were being propitiated : it could not
have been more hurtful than the alliance of gods who were
won with the foulest vices. To avert the danger which
threatened men’s bodies, the gods were conciliated in a fashion
that drove virtue from their spirits; and the gods did not
enrol themselves as defenders of the battlements against the
besiegers, until they had first stormed and sacked the morality
1 Cicero, C. Verrem, vi. 8. 8 Cicero, C, CatiUnam, iii. 8.

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of the citizens. This propitiation of such divinities,-*— a propi-
tiation so wanton, so impure, so immodest, so wicked, so filthy,
whose actors the innate and praiseworthy virtue of the Romans
disabled from civic honours, erased from their tribe, recognised
as polluted and made infamous ; — this propitiation, I say, so
foul, so detestable, and alien from every religious feeling, these
fabulous and ensnaring accounts of the criminal actions of the
gods, these scandalous actions which they either shamefully
and wickedly committed, or more shamefully and wickedly
feigned, all this the whole city learned in public both by the
words and gestures of the actors. They saw that the gods
delighted in the commission of these things, and therefore
believed that they wished them not only to be exhibited to
them, but to be imitated by themselves. But as for that good
and honest instruction which they speak of, it was given in
such secrecy, and to so few (if indeed given at all), that they
seemed rather to fear it might be divulged, than that it might
not be practised.

28. That the Christian religion is health-giving .

They, then, are but abandoned and ungrateful wretches, in
deep and fast bondage to that malign spirit, who complain and
ipunniir that men are rescued by the name of Christ from the
hellish thraldom of these unclean spirits, and from a participa-
tion in their punishment, and are brought out of the night of
pestilential ungodliness into the light of most healthful piety.
Only such men could murmur that the masses flock to the
churches and their chaste acts of worship, where a seemly
separation of the sexes is observed ; where they learn how they
may so spend this earthly life, as to merit a blessed eternity
hereafter ; where Holy Scripture and instruction in righteous-
ness are proclaimed from a raised platform in presence of all,
that both they who do the word may hear to their salvation,
and they who do it not may hear to judgment. And though
some enter who scoff at such precepts, all their petulance is
either quenched by a sudden change, or is restrained through
fear or shame. For no filthy and wicked action is there set
forth to be gazed at or to be imitated ; but either the precepts
of the true God are recommended, His miracles narrated, His
gifts praised, or His benefits implored.

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29. An exhortation to the Romans to renounce paganism .

This, rather, is the religion worthy of your desires, 0 admir-
able Roman race, — the progeny of your Scaevolas and Scipios, of
Regulus, and of Fabricius. This rather covet, this distinguish
from that foul vanity and crafty malice of the devils. If there
is in your nature any eminent virtue, only by true piety is it
purged and perfected, while by impiety it is wrecked and
punished. Choose now what you will pursue, that your praise
may be not in yourself, but in the true God, in whom is no
error. For of popular glory you have had your share; but by
the secret providence of God, the true religion was not offered
to your choice. Awake, it is now day; as you have already
awaked in the persons of some in whose perfect virtue and
sufferings for the true faith we glory: for they, contending
on all sides with hostile powers, and conquering them all by
bravely dying, have purchased for us this country of ours with
their blood ; to which country we invite you, and exhort you
to add yourselves to the number of the citizens of this city,
which also has a sanctuary1 of its own in the true remission of
sins. Do not listen to those degenerate sons of thine who
slander Christ and Christians, and impute to them these dis-
astrous times, though they desire times in which they may
enjoy rather impunity for their wickedness than a peaceful life.
Such has never been Rome’s ambition even in regard to her
earthly country. Lay hold now on the celestial country,
which is easily won, and in which you will reign truly and
for ever. For there shalt thou find no vestal fire, no Capitoline
stone, but the one true God

“ No date, no goal will here ordain :

But grant an endless, boundless reign.”*

No longer, then, follow after false and deceitful gods ; abjure
them rather, and despise them, bursting forth into true liberty.
Gods they are not, but malignant spirits, to whom your eternal
happiness will be a sore punishment. Juno, from whom you
deduce your origin according to the flesh, did not so bitterly
grudge Rome’s citadels to the Trojans, as these devils whom
yet ye repute gods, grudge an everlasting seat to the race of
mankind. And thou thyself hast in no wavering voice passed

1 Alluding to the sanctuary given to all who fled to Rome in its early days.

* Virgil, JSneid, i. 278.

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judgment on them, when thou didst- pacify them with games,
and yet didst account as infamous the men by whom the plays
were acted. Suffer us, then, to assert thy freedom against the
unclean spirits who had imposed on thy neck the yoke of
celebrating their own shame and filthiness. The actors of
these divine crimes thou hast removed from offices of honour ;
supplicate the true God, that He may remove from thee those
gods who delight in their crimes, — a most disgraceful thing if
the crimes are really theirs, and a most malicious invention
if the crimes are feigned. Well done, in that thou hast spon-
taneously banished from the number of your citizens all actors
and players. Awake more fully: the majesty of God cannot be
propitiated by that which defiles the dignity of man. How,
then, can you believe that gods who take pleasure in such
lewd plays, belong to the number of the holy powers of heaven,
when the men by whom these plays are acted are by your-
selves refused admission into the number of Roman citizens
even of the lowest grade? Incomparably more glorious than
Rome, is that heavenly city in which for victory you have
truth; for dignity, holiness; for peace, felicity; for life, eternity.
Much less does it admit into its society such gods, if thou dost
blush to admit into thine such men. Wherefore, if thou wouldst
attain to the blessed city, shun the society of devils. They
who are propitiated by deeds of shame, are unworthy of the
worship of right-hearted men. Let these, then, be obliterated
from your worship by the cleansing of the Christian religion,
as those men were blotted from your citizenship by the censor’s
mark.

Rut, so far as regards carnal benefits, which are the only
blessings the wicked desire to enjoy, and carnal miseries, which
alone they shrink from enduring, we will show in the following
book that the demons have not the power they are supposed
to have ; and although they had it, we ought rather on that
account to despise these blessings, than for the sake of them
to worship those gods, and by worshipping them to miss the
attainment of these blessings they grudge us. But that they
have not even this power which is ascribed to them by those
who worship them for the sake of temporal advantages, this,
I say, I will prove in the following book ; so let us here dose
the present argument.

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BOOK m.] GREAT CALAMmES BEFORE CHRIST’S ADVENT. 91

BOOK THIRD.

ARGUMENT.

AS IN THE FOREGOING BOOK AUGUSTINE HAS PROVED REGARDING MORAL AND
SPIRITUAL CALAMITIES, SO IN THI8 BOOK HE PROVES REGARDING EXTERNAL
AND BODILY DISASTERS, THAT SINCE THE FOUNDATION OF THE CITY THE
ROMANS HAVE BEEN CONTINUALLY SUBJECT TO THEM ; AND THAT EVEN
WHEN THE FALSE GOD8 WERE WORSHIPPED WITHOUT A RIVAL* BEFORE THE
ADVENT OF CHRI8T, THEY AFFORDED NO RELIEF FROM SUCH CALAMITIES.

1. Of the ills.which alone the wicked fear , and which the world continually
suffered, even when the gods were worshipped.

OF moral and spiritual evils, which are above all others to
be deprecated, I think enough has already been said to
show that the false gods took no steps to prevent the people
who worshipped them from being overwhelmed by such cala-
mities, but rather aggravated the ruin. I see I must now
speak of those evils which alone are dreaded by the heathen —
famine, pestilence, war, pillage, captivity, massacre, and the
like calamities, already enumerated in the first book. For
evil men account those things alone evil which do not make
men evil ; neither do they blush to praise good things, and
yet to remain evil among the good things they praise. It
grieves them more to own a bad house than a bad life, as if
it were man’s greatest good to have everything good but him-
self. But $ot even such evils as were alone dreaded by the
heathen were warded off by their gods, even when they were
most unrestrictedly worshipped. For in various times and
places before the advent of our Redeemer, the human race was
crushed with numberless and sometimes incredible calamities ;
and at that time what gods but those did the world worship,
if you except the one nation of the Hebrews, and, beyond them,
such individuals as the most secret and most just judgment
of God counted worthy of divine grace ? 1 But that I may
1 Compare Aug. Epist. ad Deogratias, 102, 13 ; and De Prced. Sand . 19.

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not be prolix, I will be silent regarding the heavy calamities
that have been suffered by any other nations, and will speak
only of what happened to Rome and the Roman empire, by
which I mean Rome properly so called, and those lands which
already, before the coming of Christ, had by alliance or con-
quest become, as it were, members of the body of the state.

2. Whether the god st whom the Greeks and Romans worshipped in common,
were justified in permitting (he destruction oj Ilium.

First, then, why was Troy or Ilium, the cradle of the
Roman people (for I must not overlook nor disguise what I
touched upon in the first book1), conquered, taken, and de-
stroyed by the Greeks, though it esteemed and worshipped
the same gods as they? Priam, some answer, paid the
penalty of the perjury of his father Laomedon * Then it is
true that Laomedon hired Apollo and Neptune as his work-
men. For the story goes that he promised them wages, and
then broke his bargain. I wonder that famous diviner Apollo
toiled at so huge a work, and never suspected Laomedon was
going to cheat him of his pay. And Neptune too, his uncle,
brother of Jupiter, king of the sea, it really was not seemly
that he should be ignorant of what was to happen. For he
is introduced by Homer8 (who lived and wrote before the
building of Rome) as predicting something great of the pos-
terity of jEneas, who in fact founded Rome. And as Homer
says, Neptune also rescued JE neas in a cloud from the wrath of
Achilles, though (according to Virgil 4)

“ All his will was to destroy
His own creation, perjured Troy.”

Gods, then, so great as Apollo and Neptune, in ignorance of
the cheat that was to defraud them of their wages, built the
walls of Troy for nothing but thanks and thankless people.4
There may be some doubt whether it is not a worse crime to
believe such persons to be gods, than to cheat such gods.
Even Homer himself did not give full credence to the story ;
for while he represents Neptune, indeed, as hostile to the
Trojans, he introduces Apollo as their champion, though the
story implies that both were offended by that fraud. If, there-

1 Ch. iy. 2 Virg. Georg, i. 502, * Laomedontere luimus perjuria Trojce.’

8 Iliad , xx. 293 et se<pp 4 jEneid , v. 810, 811. 8 Gratis et ingratis.

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fore, they believe their fables, let them blush to worship such
gods ; if they discredit the fables, let no more he said of the
“ Trojan peijury ; ” or let them explain how the gods hated
Trojan, but loved Roman perjury. For how did the conspiracy
of Catiline, even in so large and corrupt a city, find so abun-
dant a supply of men whose hands and tongues found them a
living by peijury and civic broils ? What else but perjury
corrupted the judgments pronounced by so many of the sena-
tors ? What else corrupted the people’s votes and decisions
of all causes tried before them ? For it seems that the
ancient practice of taking oaths has been preserved even in
the midst of the greatest corruption, not for the sake of re-
straining wickedness by religious fear, but to complete the tale
of crimes by adding that of peijury.

3. That the gods could not he offended by the adultery of Paris, this crime being
so common among themselves .

There is no ground, then, for representing the gods (by
whom, as they say, that empire stood, though they are proved
to have been conquered by the Greeks) as being enraged at the
Trojan peijury. Neither, as others again plead in their de-
fence, was it indignation at the adultery of Paris that caused
them to withdraw their protection from Troy. For their
habit is to be instigators and instructors in vice, not its
avengers. “ The city of Rome,” says Sallust, “ was first built
and inhabited, as I have heard, by the Trojans, who, flying
their country, under the conduct of iEneas, wandered about
without making any settlement.”1 If, then, the gods were
of opinion that the adultery of Paris should be punished, it
was chiefly the Romans, or at least the Romans also, who
should have suffered ; for the adultery was brought about, by
^Eneas’ mother. But how could they hate in Paris a crime
which they made no objection to in their own sister Venus,
who (not to mention any other instance) committed adultery
with Anchises, and so became the mother of AEneas ? Is it
because in the one case Menelaus2 was aggrieved, while in
the other Vulcan8 connived at the crime ? For the gods, I
fancy, are so little jealous of their wives, that they make no
scruple of sharing them with men. But perhaps I may be

1 De Conj. CaL vi 8 Helen’s husband. 3 Venus' husband;

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suspected of turning the myths into ridicule, and not handling
so weighty a subject with sufficient gravity. Well, then, let
us say that iEneas is not the son of Venus. I am willing to
admit it ; but is Romulus any more the son of Mars ? For
why not the one as well as the other ? Or is it lawful for
gods to have intercourse with women, unlawful for men to
have intercourse with goddesses ? A hard, or rather an in-
credible condition, that what was allowed to Mars by the law
of Venus, should not be allowed to Venus herself by her own
law. However, both cases have the authority of Rome ; for
Caesar in modem times believed no less that he was descended
from Venus,1 than the ancient Romulus believed himself the
son of Mars.

4. Of Varro's opinion, that it is useful for men to feign themselves the offspring

of the gods .

Some one will say, But do you believe all this ? Not I
indeed. For even Varro, a very learned heathen, all but
admits that these stories are false, though he does not boldly
and confidently say so. But he maintains it is useful for
states that brave men believe, though falsely, that they are
descended from the gods ; for that thus the human spirit,
cherishing the belief of its divine descent, will both more
boldly venture into great enterprises, and will carry them out
more energetically, and will therefore by its very confidence
secure more abundant success. You see how wide a field is
opened to falsehood by this opinion of Varro’s, which I have
expressed as well as I could in my own words ; and how
comprehensible it is, that many of the religions and sacred
legends should be feigned in a community in which it was
judged profitable for the citizens that lies should be told even
about the gods themselves.

5. That it is not credible that the god ’s should have punished the adultery of

Paris , seeing they showed no indignation at the adultery of the mother qf
Romulus .

But whether Venus could bear JEneas to a human father
Anchises, or Mars beget Romulus of the daughter of Numitor,

1 Suetonius, in his Life of Julius Caesar (c. 6), relates that, in pronouncing a
funeral oration in praise of his aunt Julia, Coesar claimed for the Julian gens to
whioh his family belonged a descent from Venus, through lulus, son of Eneas.

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we leave as unsettled questions. For our own Scriptures
suggest the very similar question, whether the fallen angels
had sexual intercourse with the daughters of men, by which
the earth was at that time filled with giants, that is, with enor-
mously large and strong men. At present, then, I will limit
my discussion to this dilemma: If that which their books
relate about the mother of JEneas and the father of Komulus
be true, how can the gods be displeased with men for adulteries
which, when committed by themselves, excite no displeasure ?
If it is false, not even in this case can the gods be angry that
men should really commit adulteries, which, even when falsely
attributed to the gods, they delight in. Moreover, if the
adultery of Mars be discredited, that Venus also may be freed
from the imputation, then the mother of Romulus is left un-
shielded by the pretext of a divine seduction. For Sylvia
was a vestal priestess, and the gods ought to avenge this sacri-
lege on the Romans with greater severity than Paris, adultery
on the Trojans. For even the Romans themselves in primi-
tive times used to go so far as to bury alive ,any vestal who
was detected in adultery, while women unconsecrated, though
they were punished, were never punished with death for that
crime ; and thus they more earnestly vindicated the purity of
shrines they esteemed divine, than of the human bed.

6. That the gods exacted no penalty for the fratricidal act of Romulus.

I add another instance : If the sins of men so greatly in-
censed those divinities, that they abandoned Troy to fire and
sword to punish the crime of Paris, the murder of Romulus*
brother ought to have incensed them more against the Romans
than the cajoling of a Greek husband moved them against the
Trojans : fratricide in a newly-born city should have provoked
them more than adultery in a city already flourishing. It
makes no difference to the question we now discuss, whether
Romulus ordered his brother to be slain, or slew him with his
own hand ; a crime this latter which many shamelessly deny,
many through shame doubt, many in grief disguise. And we
shall not pause to examine and weigh the testimonies of his-
torical writers on the subject All agree that the brother of
Romulus was slain, not by enemies, not by strangers. If it

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was Komulus who either commanded or perpetrated this crime ;
Romulus was more truly the head of the Romans than Paris
of the Trojans ; why then did he who carried off another man’s
wife bring down the anger of the gods on the Trojans, while he
who took his brother’s life obtained the guardianship of thpse
same gods ? If, on the other hand, that crime was not wrought
either by the hand or will of Romulus, then the whole city is
chargeable with it, because it did not see to its punishment,
and thus committed, not fratricide, but parricide, which is worse.
For both brothers were the founders of that city, of which the
one was by villany prevented from being a ruler. So far as
I see, then, no evil can be ascribed to Troy which warranted
the gods in abandoning it to destruction, nor any good to Rome
which accounts for the gods visiting it with prosperity ; un-
less the truth be, that they fled from Troy because they were
vanquished, and betook themselves to Rome to practise their
characteristic deceptions thera Nevertheless they kept a
footing for themselves in Troy, that they might deceive future
inhabitants who repeopled these lands ; while at Rome, by a
wider exercise of their malignant arts, they exulted in more
abundant honours.

7. Of the destruction of Ilium by Fimbria , a lieutenant qf Marius .

And surely we may ask what wrong poor Ilium had done,
that, in the first heat of the civil wars of Rome, it should
suffer at the hand of Fimbria, the veriest villain among
Marius’ partisans, a more fierce and cruel destruction than
the Grecian sack.1 For when the Greeks took it many
escaped, and many who did not escape were suffered to
live, though in captivity. But Fimbria from the first gave
orders that not a life should be spared, and burnt up together
the city and all its inhabitants. Thus was Ilium requited,
not by the Greeks, whom she had provoked by wrong-doing ;
but by the Romans, who had been built out of her ruins ;
while the gods, adored alike of both sides, did simply nothing,
or, to speak more correctly, could do nothing. Is it then true,
that at this time also, after Troy had repaired the damage
done by the Grecian fire, all the gods by whose help the king-
dom stood, "forsook each fane, each sacred shrine ?”

1 Livy, 83, one of the lost books ; and Appian, in MithridaL

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But if so, I ask the reason ; for in my judgment, the con-
duct of the gods was as much to be reprobated as that of the
townsmen to be applauded. For these closed their gates
against Fimbria, that they might preserve the city for Sylla,
and were therefore burnt and consumed by the enraged
general. Now, up to this time, Sylla’s cause was the more
worthy of the two ; for till now he used arms to restore the
republic, and as yet his good intentions had met with no
reverses. What better thing, then, could the Trojans have
done ? What more honourable, what more faithful to Rome, or
more worthy of her relationship, than to preserve their city for
the better part of the Romans, and to shut their gates against
a parricide of his country ? It is for the defenders of the
gods to consider the ruin which this conduct brought on Troy.
The gods deserted an adulterous people, and abandoned Troy
to the fires of the Greeks, that out of her ashes a chaster
Rome might arise. But why did they a second time aban-
don this same town, allied now to Rome, and not making
war upon her noble daughter, but preserving a most stedfast
and pious fidelity to Rome’s most justifiable faction ? Why did
they give her up to be destroyed, not by the Greek heroes,
but by the basest of the Romans ? Or, if the gods did not
favour Sylla’s cause, for which the unhappy Trojans main-
tained their city, why did they themselves predict and pro-
mise Sylla such successes ? Must we call them flatterers of
the fortunate, rather than helpers of the wretched ? Troy was
not destroyed, then, because the gods deserted it. For the
demons, always watchful to deceive, did what they could.
For, when all the statues were overthrown and burnt together
with the town, Livy tells us that only the image of Minerva
is said to have been found standing uninjured amidst the
ruins of her temple ; not that it might be said in their praise,
“ The gods who made this realm divine,” but that it might not
be said in their defence. They are “ gone from each fane, each
sacred shrine for that marvel was permitted to them, not
that they might be proved to be powerful, but that they might
be convicted of being present.

8. Whether Rome ought to have been entrusted to the Trojan gods ?

Where, then, was the wisdom of entrusting Borne to the

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Trojan gods, who had demonstrated their weakness in the
loss of Troy ? Will some one say that, when Fimbria
stormed Troy, the gods were already resident in Rome ?
How, then, did the image of Minerva remain standing?
Besides, if they were at Kome when Fimbria destroyed Troy,
perhaps they were at Troy when Kome itself was taken and set
on fire by the Gauls. But as they are very acute in hearing,
and very swift in their movements, they came quickly at the
cackling of the goose to defend at least the Capitol, though to
defend the rest of the city they were too long in being warned.

9. Whether it is credible that the peace during the reign of Numa was brought
about by the gods.

It is also believed that it was by the help of the gods that
the successor of Romulus, Numa Pompilius, enjoyed peace
during his entire reign, and shut the gates of Janus, which
are customarily kept open1 during war. And it is supposed
he was thus requited for appointing many religious observ-
ances among the Romans. Certainly that king would have
commanded our congratulations for so rare a leisure, had he
been wise enough to spend it on wholesome pursuits, and,
subduing a pernicious curiosity, had sought out the true God
with true piety. But as it was, the gods were not the authors
of his leisure ; but possibly they would have deceived him less
had they found him busier. For the more disengaged they
found him, the more they themselves occupied his attention.
Yarro informs us of all his efforts, and of the arts he employed
to associate these gods with himself and the city ; and in its
own place, if God will, I shall discuss these matters. Mean-
while, as we are speaking of the benefits conferred by the
gods, \ readily admit that peace is a great benefit ; but it is
a benefit of the true God, which, like the sun, the rain, and
other supports of life, is frequently conferred on the ungrate-
ful and wicked. But if this great boon was conferred on
Rome and Pompilius by their gods, why did they never after-
wards grant it to the Roman empire during even more meri-
torious periods ? Were the sacred rites more efficient at

1 The gates of Janus were not the gates of a temple, but the gates of a passage
called Janus, which was used only for military purposes ; shut therefore in peace,
open in war.

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their first institution than during their subsequent celebra-
tion ? But they had no existence in Numa’s time, until he
added them to the ritual ; whereas afterwards they had
already been celebrated and preserved, that benefit might
arise from them. How, then, is it that those forty-three, or
as others prefer it, thirty-nine years of Numa’s reign, were
passed in unbroken peace, and yet that afterwards, when the
worship was established, and the gods themselves, who were
invoked by it, were the recognised guardians and patrons of
the city, we can with difficulty find during the whole period,
from the building of the city to the reign of Augustus, one
year — that, viz., which followed the close of the first Punic
war — in which, for a marvel, the Romans were able to shut
the gates of war ?*

10. Whether it was desirable that the Roman empire should be ina' eased by such '
a Jurious succession of wars , when it might have been quiet and safe by
following in the peaceful ways of Numa.

Do they reply that the Roman empire could never have
been so widely extended, nor so glorious, save by constant
and unintermitting wars ? A fit argument, truly ! Why
must a kingdom be distracted in order to be great ? In this
little world of man’s body, is it not better to have a moderate
stature, and health with it, than to attain the huge dimensions
of a giant by unnatural torments, and when you attain it to
find no rest, but to be pained the more in proportion to the
size of your members ? What evil would have resulted, or
rather what good would not have resulted, had those times
continued which Sallust sketched, when he says, “ At first the
kings (for that was the first title of empire in the world) were
divided in their sentiments : part cultivated the mind, others
the body: at that time the life of men was led without
covetousness ; every one was sufficiently satisfied with his
own !”* Was it requisite, then, for Rome’s prosperity, that the
state of things which Virgil reprobates should succeed :

“At length stole on a baser age,

And war’s indomitable rage,

And greedy lust of gain ? ” 3

1 The year of the Consuls T. Manlius and C. Atilius, A.u.c. 519.

* flail- Conj. Cat. ii. 3 JSneid, viii. 826-7.

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But obviously the Romans have a plausible defence for
undertaking and carrying on such disastrous wars, — to wit,
that the pressure of their enemies forced them to resist, so
that they were compelled to fight, not by any greed of human
applause, but by the necessity of protecting life and liberty.
Well, let that pass. Here is Sallust’s account of the matter :
“ For when their state, enriched with laws, institutions, terri-
tory, seemed abundantly prosperous and sufficiently powerful,
according to the ordinary law of human nature, opulence gave
birth to envy. Accordingly, the neighbouring kings and states
took arms and assaulted them. A few allies lent assistance ;
the rest, struck with fear, kept aloof from dangers. But the
Romans, watchful at home and in war, were active, made pre-
parations, encouraged one another, marched to meet their
enemies, — protected by arms their liberty, country, parents.
Afterwards, when they had repelled the dangers by their
bravery, they carried help to their allies and friends, and pro-
cured alliances more by conferring than by receiving favours.” 1
This was to build up Rome’s greatness by honourable means.
But, in Numa’s reign, I would know whether the long peace
was maintained in spite of the incursions of wicked neigh-
bours, or if these incursions were discontinued that the peace
might be maintained ? For if even then Rome was harassed
by wars, and yet did not meet force with force, the same
means she then used to quiet her enemies without conquering
them in war, or terrifying them with the onset of battle, she
might have used always, and have reigned in peace with the
gates of Janus shut. And if this was not in her power, then
Rome enjoyed peace not at the will of her gods, but at the
will of her neighbours round about, and only so long as they
cared to provoke her with no war, unless perhaps these pitiful
gods will dare to sell to one man as their favour what lies not
in their power to bestow, but in the will of another man.
These demons, indeed, in so far as they are permitted, can
terrify or incite the minds of wicked men by their own pecu-
liar wickedness. But if they always had this power, and if
no action were taken against their efforts by a more secret
and higher power, they would be supreme to give peace or
1 Sail. Cat Conj. vi.

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the victories of war, which almost always fall out through
some human emotion, and frequently in opposition to the will
of the gods, as is proved not only by lying legends, which
scarcely hint or signify any grain of truth, but even by
Soman history itself.

11. Of the statue of Apollo at Cumae , whose tears are supposed to have portended
disaster to the Greeks, whom the god was unable to succour .

And it is still this weakness of the gods which is confessed
in the story of the Cuman Apollo, who is said to have wept
for four days during the war with the Achseans and King
Aristonicus. And when the augurs were alarmed at the
portent, and had determined to cast the statue into the sea,
the old men of Cumae interposed, and related that a similar
prodigy had occurred to the same image during the wars
against Antiochus and against Perseus, and that by a decree
of the senate gifts had been presented to Apollo, because the
event had proved favourable to the Homans. Then sooth-
sayers were summoned who were supposed to have greater
professional skill, and they pronounced that the weeping of
Apollo’s image was propitious to the Romans, because Cumse
was a Greek colony, and that Apollo was bewailing (and
thereby presaging) the grief and calamity that was about to
light upon his own land of Greece, from which he had been
brought Shortly afterwards it was reported that King Aris-
tonicus was defeated and made prisoner, — a defeat certainly
opposed to the will of Apollo ; and this he indicated by even
shedding tears from his marble image. And this shows us
that, though the verses of the poets are mythical, they are not
altogether devoid of truth, but describe the manners of the
demons in a sufficiently fit style. For in Virgil Diana
mourned for Camilla,1 and Hercules wept for Pallas doomed
to die.2 This is perhaps the reason why Numa Pompilius,
too, when, enjoying prolonged peace, but without knowing or
inquiring from whom he received it, he began in his leisure
to consider to what gods he should entrust the safe keeping
and conduct of Rome, and not dreaming that the true,
almighty, and most high God cares for earthly affairs, but
recollecting only that the Trojan gods which M neas had
1 jEneid , xL 532. * Ibid. x. 464.

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brought to Italy had been able to preserve neither the Trojan
nor Lavinian kingdom founded by iEneas himself, concluded
that he must provide other gods as guardians of fugitives
and helpers of the weak, and add them to those earlier
divinities who had either come over to Rome with Komulus,
or when Alba was destroyed.

12. That the Romans added a vast number of gods to those introduced by
Numa, and that their numbers helped them not at all.

But though Pompilius introduced so ample a ritual, yet did
not Rome see fit to be content with it. For as yet Jupiter
himself had not his chief temple, — it being King Tarquin
who built the Capitol. And Aesculapius left Epidaurus for
Rome, that in this foremost city he might have a finer field
for the exercise of his great medical skilL1 The mother of
the gods, too, came I know not whence from Pessinuns ; it
being unseemly that, while her son presided on the Capitoline
hill, she herself should lie hid in obscurity. But if she is the
mother of all the gods, she not only followed some of her
children to Rome, but left others to follow her. I wonder,
indeed, if she were the mother of Cynocephalus, who a long
while afterwards came from Egypt. Whether also the goddess
Fever was her offspring, is a matter for her grandson Aescu-
lapius 2 to decide. But of whatever breed she be, the foreign
gods will not presume, I trust, to call a goddess base-born who
is a Roman citizen. Who can number the deities to whom
the guardianship of Rome was entrusted? Indigenous and'
imported, both of heaven, earth, hell, seas, fountains, rivers ;
and, as Varro says, gods certain and uncertain, male and
female : for, as among animals, so among all kinds of gods
are there these distinctions. Rome, then, enjoying the pro-
tection of such a cloud of deities, might surely have been pre-
served from some of those great and horrible calamities, of
which I can mention but a few. For by the great smoke of
her altars she summoned to her protection, as by a beacon-
fire, a host of gods, for whom she appointed and maintained
temples, altars, sacrifices, priests, and thus offended the true
and most high God, to whom alone all this ceremonial is law-
fully due. And, indeed, she was more prosperous when she
1 Livy, x. 47. 2 Being son of Apollo.

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had fewer gods ; but the greater she became, the more gods
she thought she should have, as the larger ship needs to be
manned by a larger crew. I suppose she despaired of the
smaller number, under whose protection she had spent com-
paratively happy days, being able to defend her greatness.
For even under the kings (with the exception of Numa Pom-
pilius, of whom I have already spoken), how wicked a con-
tentiousness must have existed to occasion the death of
Romulus’ brother !

13. By what right or agreement the Romans obtained their first wives .

How is it that neither Juno, who with her husband Jupiter
even then cherished

“ Rome's sons, the nation of the gown,” 1

nor Venus herself, could assist the children of the loved
JEneas to find wives by some right and equitable means ?
For the lack of this entailed upon the Romans the lamentable
necessity of stealing their wives, and then waging war with
their fathers-in-law ; so that the wretched women, before they
had recovered from the wrong done them by their husbands,
were downed with the blood of their fathers. "But the
Romans conquered their neighbours.” Yes ; but with what
wounds on both sides, and with what sad slaughter of relatives
and neighbours! The war of Caesar and Pompey was the
contest of only one father-in-law with one son-in-law; and
before it began, the daughter of Caesar, Pompe/s wife, was
already dead. But with how keen and just an accent of grief
does Lucan2 exclaim: "I sing that worse than civil war
waged in the plains of Emathia, and in which the crime was
justified by the victory !”

The Romans, then, conquered that they might, with hands
stained in the blood of their fathers-in-law, wrench the
miserable girls from their embrace, — girls who dared not
weep for their slain parents, for fear of offending their vic-
torious husbands ; and while yet the battle was raging, stood
with their prayers on their lips, and knew not for whom to
utter them. Such nuptials were certainly prepared for the
Roman people not by Venus, but Bellona ; or possibly that
1 Virgil, JEn. i. 286. * PharsaL y. 1.

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infernal fury Alecto had more liberty to injure them now that
Juno was aiding them, than when the prayers of that goddess
had excited her against JEneas. Andromache in captivity
was happier than these Roman brides. For though she was a
slave, yet, after she had become the wife of Pyrrhus, no more
Trojans fell by his hand ; but the Romans slew in battle the
very fathers of the brides they fondled. Andromache, the
victor's captive, could only mourn, not fear, the death of her
people. The Sabine women, related to men still combatants,
feared the death of their fathers when their husbands went
out to battle, and mourned their death as they returned, while
neither their grief nor their fear could be freely expressed.
For the victories of their husbands, involving the destruction
of fellow-townsmen, relatives, brothers, fathers, caused either
pious agony or cruel exultation. Moreover, as the fortune of
war is capricious, some of them lost their husbands by the
sword of their parents, while others lost husband and father
together in mutual destruction. For the Romans by no means
escaped with impunity, but they were driven back within
their walls, and defended themselves behind closed gates ; and
when the gates were opened by guile, and the enemy admitted
into the town, the Forum itself was the field of a hateful and
fierce engagement of fathers-in-law and sons-in-law. The
ravishers were indeed quite defeated, and, flying on all sides
to their houses, sullied with new shame their original shame-
ful and lamentable triumph. It was at this juncture that
Romulus, hoping no more from the valour of his citizens,
prayed Jupiter that they might stand their ground ; and from
this occasion the god gained the name of Stator. But not
even thus would the mischief have been finished, had not the
ravished women themselves flashed out with dishevelled hair,
and cast themselves before their parents, and thus disarmed
their just rage, not with the arms of victory, but with the
supplications of filial affection. Then Romulus, who could
not brook his own brother as a colleague, was compelled to
accept Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, as his partner on the
throne. But how long would he who misliked the fellowship
of his own twin-brother endure a stranger ? So, Tatius being
slain, Romulus remained sole king, that he might be the

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greater god. See what rights of marriage these were that
fomented unnatural wars. These were the Roman leagues of
kindred, relationship, alliance, religion. This was the life of
the city so abundantly protected by the gods. You see how
many severe things might be said on this theme ; but our pur-
pose carries us past them, and requires our discourse for other
matters.

14. Of the wickedness of the war waged by the Romans against the Albans , and
of the victories won by the lust qf power .

But what happened after Numa’s reign, and under the other
kings, when the Albans were provoked into war, with sad re-
sults not to themselves alone, but also to the Romans ? The
long peace of Numa had become tedious; and with what
endless slaughter and detriment of both states did the Roman
and Alban armies bring it to an end ! For Alba, which had
been founded by Ascanius, son of ASneas, and which was more
properly the mother of Rome than Troy herself, was provoked
to battle by Tullus Hostilius, king of Rome, and in the conflict
both inflicted and received such damage, that at length both
parties wearied of the struggle. It was then devised that the
war should be decided by the combat of three twin-brothers
from each army: from the Romans the three Horatii stood
forward, from the Albans the three Curiatii Two of the
Horatii were overcome and disposed of by the Curiatii ; but
by the remaining Horatius the three Curiatii were slain. Thus
Rome remained victorious, but with such a sacrifice that only
one survivor returned to his home. Whose was the loss on
both sides ? Whose the grief, but of the offspring of ASneas, the
descendants of Ascanius, the progeny of Yenus, the grandsons of
J upiter ? For this, too, was a “ worse than civil ” war, in which
the belligerent states were mother and daughter. And to this
combat of the three twin-brothers there was added another
atrocious and horrible catastrophe. For as the two nations
had formerly been friendly (being related and neighbours), the
sister of the Horatii had been betrothed to one of the Curiatii ;
and she, when she saw her brother wearing the spoils of her
betrothed, burst into tears, and was slain by her own brother in
his anger. To me, this one girl seems to have been more humane
than the whole Roman people. I cannot think her to blame for

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lamenting the man to whom already she had plighted her troth,
or, as perhaps she was doing, for grieving that her brother should
have slain him to whom he had promised his sister. For why
do we praise the grief of iEneas (in Virgil *) over the enemy cut
down even by his own hand ? Why did Marcellus shed tears
over the city of Syracuse, when he recollected, just before he
destroyed, its magnificence and meridian glory, and thought
upon the common lot of all things ? I demand, in the name
of humanity, that if men are praised for tears shed over ene-
mies conquered by themselves, a weak girl should not be
counted criminal for bewailing her lover slaughtered by the
hand of her brother. While, then, that maiden was weeping
for the death of her betrothed inflicted by her brother’s hand,
Rome was rejoicing that such devastation had been wrought
on her mother state, and that she had purchased a victory with
such an expenditure of the common blood of herself and the
Albans.

Why allege to me the mere names and words of “ glory” and
“ victory ?” Tear off the disguise of wild delusion, and look at
the naked deeds : weigh them naked, judge them naked. Let
the charge be brought against Alba, as Troy was charged with
adultery. There is no such charge, none like it found : the
war was kindled only in order that there

“ Might sound in languid ears the cry
Of Tullus and of victory.”*

This vice of restless ambition was the sole motive to that
social and parricidal war, — a vice which Sallust brands in
passing ; for when he has spoken with brief but hearty com-
mendation of those primitive times in which life was spent
without covetousness, and every one was sufficiently satisfied
with what he had, he goes on : “ But after Cyrus in Asia, and
the Lacedemonians and Athenians in Greece, began to subdue
cities and nations, and to account the lust of sovereignty a
sufficient ground for war, and to reckon that the greatest glory

1 JSneid, x. 821, of Lausus :

“But when Anchises’ son surveyed
The fair, fair face so ghastly made,

He groaned, by tenderness unmanned,

And stretched the sympathizing hand,” etc.

* Virgil, JUneid , vi. 813.

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consisted in the greatest empire;”1 and so on, as I need not now
quote. This lust of sovereignty disturbs and consumes the
human race with frightful ills. By this lust Borne was over-
come when she triumphed over Alba, and praising her own
crime, called it glory. For, as our Scriptures say, “ the wicked
boasteth of his heart’s desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom
the Lord abhorreth.”3 Away, then, with these deceitful masks,
these deluding whitewashes, that things may be truthfully seen
and scrutinized. Let no man tell me that this and the other
was a “ great ” man, because he fought and conquered so and
so. Gladiators fight and conquer, and this barbarism has its
meed of praise ; but I think it were better to take the conse-
quences of any sloth, than to seek the glory won by such
arms. And if two gladiators entered the arena to fight, one
being father, the other his son, who would endure such a spec-
tacle ? who would not be revolted by it ? How, then, could
that be a glorious war which a daughter-state waged against
its mother ? Or did it constitute a difference, that the battle-
field was not an arena, and that the wide plains were filled
with the carcases not of two gladiators, but of many of the
flower of two nations ; and that those contests were viewed not
by the amphitheatre, but by the whole world, and furnished a
profane spectacle both to those alive at the time, and to their
posterity, so long as the fame of it is handed down ?

Yet those gods, guardians of the Koman empire, and, as it
were, theatric spectators of such contests as these, were not
satisfied until the sister of the Horatii was added by her
brother’s sword as a third victim from the Koman side, so that
Borne herself, though she won the day, should have as many
deaths to mourn. Afterwards, as a fruit of the victory. Alba
was destroyed, though it was there the Trojan gods had formed
a third asylum after Ilium had been sacked by the Greeks, and
after they had left Lavinium, where iEneas had founded a
kingdom in a land of banishment. But probably Alba was
destroyed because from it too the gods had migrated, in their
usual fashion, as Virgil says :

“Gone from each fane, each sacred shrine,

Are those who made this realm divine. ”*

1 Sallust, Cat. Conj. ii. * Ps. x. 3. * JSndd, ii. 351-2.

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Gone, indeed, and from now their third asylum, that Borne
might seem all the wiser in committing herself to them after
they had deserted three other cities. Alba, whose king
Amulius had banished his brother, displeased them; Borne,
whose king Romulus had slain his brother, pleased them. But
before Alba was destroyed, its population, they say, was amal-
gamated with the inhabitants of Borne, so that the two cities
were one. Well, admitting it was so, yet the fact remains
that the city of Ascanius, the third retreat of the Trojan gods,
was destroyed by the daughter-city. Besides, to effect this
pitiful conglomerate of the war’s leavings, much blood was
spilt on both sides. And how shall I speak in detail of
the same wars, so often renewed in subsequent reigns, though
they seemed to have been finished by great victories ; and of
wars that time after time were brought to an end by great
slaughters, and which yet time after time were renewed
by the posterity of those who had made peace and struck
treaties ? Of this calamitous history we have no small proof,
in the fact that no subsequent king closed the gates of war ;
and therefore, with all their tutelar gods, no one of them
reigned in peace.

15. What manner qf life and death the Roman longs had .

And what was the end of the kings themselves? Of
Romulus, a flattering legend tells us that he was assumed into
heaven. But certain Roman historians relate that he was
tom in pieces by the senate for his ferocity, and that a man,
Julius Proculus, was suborned to give out that Romulus had
appeared to him, and through him commanded the Roman
people to worship him as a god ; and that in this way the
people, who were beginning to resent the action of the senate,
were quieted and pacified. For an eclipse of the sun had also
happened ; and this was attributed to the divine power of
Romulus by the ignorant multitude, who did not know that
it was brought about by the fixed laws of the sun’s course :
though this grief of the sun might rather have been con-
sidered proof that Romulus had been slain, and that the crime
was indicated by this deprivation of the sun’s light ; as, in
truth, was the case when the Lord was crucified through the

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cruelty and impiety of the Jews. For it is sufficiently demon-
strated that this latter obscuration of the sun did not occur
by the natural laws of the heavenly bodies, because it was
then the Jewish passover, which is held only at full moon,
whereas natural eclipses of the sun happen only at the last
quarter of the moon. Cicero, too, shows plainly enough that ' *
the apotheosis of Romulus was imaginary rather than real, when,
even while he is praising him in one of Scipio’s remarks in the
Be Republzca , he says : “ Such a reputation had he acquired,
that when he suddenly disappeared during an eclipse of the
sun, he was supposed to have been assumed into the number
of the gods, which could be supposed of no mortal who had
not the highest reputation for virtue.” 1 By these words, “ he
suddenly disappeared,” we are to understand that he was mys-
teriously made away with by the violence either of the tempest
or of a murderous assault. For their other writers speak not
only of an eclipse, but of a sudden storm also, which certainly
either afforded opportunity for the crime, or itself made an end
of Romulus. And of Tullus Hostilius, who was the third king
of Rome, and who was himself destroyed by lightning, Cicero
in the same book says, that “ he was not supposed to have been
deified by this death, possibly because the Romans were un-
willing to vulgarize the promotion they were assured or per-
suaded of in the case of Romulus, lest they should bring it
into contempt by gratuitously assigning it to all and sundry.”
In one of his invectives,2 too, he says, in round terms, "The
founder of this city, Romulus, we have raised to immortality
and divinity by kindly celebrating his services;” implying
that his deification was not real, but reputed, and called so
by courtesy on account of his virtues. In the dialogue Hot-
tensius, too, while speaking of the regular eclipses of the sun,
he says that they "produce the same darkness as covered
the death of Romulus, which happened during an eclipse
of the sun.” Here you see he does not at all shrink from
speaking of his "death,” for Cicero was more of a reasoner
than an eulogist.

The other kings of Rome, too, with the exception of Numa
Pompilius and Ancus Marcius, who died natural deaths, what
1 Cicero, Be Rep \ ii. 10. * Contra Cat iii. 2.

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horrible ends they had ! Tullus Hostilius, the conqueror and
destroyer of Alba, was, as 1 said, himself and all his house
consumed by lightning. Priscus Tarquinius was slain by his
predecessor’s sons. Servius Tullius was foully murdered by
his son-in-law Tarquinius Superbus, who succeeded him on the
throne. Nor did so flagrant a parricide committed against
Rome’s best king drive from their altars and shrines those gods
who were said to have been moved by Paris’ adultery to treat
poor Troy in this style, and abandon it to the fire and sword
of the Greeks. Nay, the very Tarquin who had murdered, was
allowed to succeed his father-in-law. And this infamous par-
ricide, during the reign he had secured by murder, was allowed
to triumph in many victorious wars, and to build the Capitol
from their spoils; the gods meanwhile not departing, but abiding,
and abetting, and suffering their king Jupiter to preside and
reign over them in that very splendid Capitol, the work of a
parricide. For he did not build the Capitol in the days of
his innocence, and then suffer banishment for subsequent
crimes ; but to that reign during which he built the Capitol,
he won his way by unnatural crime. And when he was after-
wards banished by the Romans, and forbidden the city, it
was not for his own but his son’s wickedness in the affair of
Lucretia, — a crime perpetrated not only without his cogniz-
ance, but in his absence. For at that time he was besieging
Ardea, and fighting Rome’s battles ; and we cannot say what
he would have done had he been aware of his son’s crime.
Notwithstanding, though his opinion was neither inquired into
nor ascertained, the people stripped him of royalty ; and when
he returned to Rome with his army, it was admitted, but he
was excluded, abandoned by his troops, and the gates shut in
his face. And yet, after he had appealed to the neighbouring
states, and tormented the Romans with calamitous but un-
successful wars, and when he was deserted by the ally on
whom he most depended, despairing of regaining the kingdom,
he lived a retired and quiet life for fourteen years, as it
is reported, in Tusculum, a Roman town, where he grew old
in his wife’s company, and at last terminated his days in a
much more desirable fashion than his father-in-law, who had
perished by the hand of his son-in-law ; his own daughter

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abetting, if report be true. And this Tarquin the Romans
called, not the Cruel, nor the Infamous, but the Proud ; their
own pride perhaps resenting his tyrannical airs. So little did
they make of his murdering their best king, his own father-
in-law, that they elected him their own king. I wonder if it
was not even more criminal in them to reward so bountifully
so great a criminal. And yet there was no word of the gods
abandoning the altars ; unless, perhaps, some one will say in
defence of the gods, that they remained at Rome for the pur-
pose of punishing the Romans, rather than of aiding and profit-
ing them, seducing them by empty victories, and wearing them
out by severe wars. Such was the life of the Romans under
the kings during the much-praised epoch of the state which
extends to the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus in the 243d
year, during which all those victories, which were bought with
so much blood and such disasters, hardly pushed Rome’s
dominion twenty miles from the city ; a territory which would
by no means bear comparison with that of any petty Gaetulian
state.

16. Of the first Roman consuls, the one of whom drone the other from the country,
and shortly after perished at Rome by the hand qf a wounded enemy,
and so ended a career qf unnatural murders .

To this epoch let us add also that of which Sallust says,
that it was ordered with justice and moderation, while the
fear of Tarquin and of a war with Etruria was impending. For
so long as the Etrurians aided the efforts of Tarquin to regain
the throne, Rome was convulsed with distressing war. And
therefore he says that the state was ordered with justice and
moderation, through the pressure of fear, not through the in-
fluence of equity. And in this very brief period, how calami-
tous a year was that in which consuls were first created, when
the kingly power was abolished! They did not fulfil their
term of office. For Junius Brutus deprived his colleague
Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, and banished him from the
city; and shortly after he himself fell in battle, at once
slaying and slain, having formerly put to death his own sons
and his brothers-in-law, because he had discovered that they
were conspiring to restore Tarquin. It is this deed that

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Virgil shudders to record, even while he seems to praise it ;
for when he says,

“ And call his own rebellions seed
For menaced liberty to bleed,’*

he immediately exclaims,

“ Unhappy father ! howsoe’er
The deed be judged by after days ; **

that is to say, let posterity judge the deed as they please,
let them praise and extol the father who slew his sons, he is
unhappy. And then he adds, as if to console so unhappy a
man:

“ His country’s love shall all o’erbear,

And unextinguished thirst of praise.” 1

In the tragic end of Brutus, who slew his own sons, and
though he slew his enemy, Tarquin’s son, yet could not sur-
vive him, hut was survived by Tarquin the elder, does not
the innocence of his colleague Collatinus seem to be vindi-
cated, who, though a good citizen, suffered the same punish-
ment as Tarquin himself, when that tyrant was banished ?
For Brutus himself is said to have been a relative 2 of Tar-
quin. But Collatinus had the misfortune to bear not only
the blood, but the name of Tarquin. To change his name,
then, not his country, would have been his fit penalty: to
abridge his name by this word, and be called simply L Col-
latinus. But he was not compelled to lose what he could
lose without detriment, but was stripped of the honour of the
first consulship, and was banished from the land he loved. Is
this, then, the glory of Brutus — this injustice, alike detestable
and profitless to the republic ? Was it to this he was driven
by * his country's love, and unextinguished thirst of praise ?”

When Tarquin the tyrant was expelled, L. Tarquinius Col-
latinus, the husband of Lucretia, was created consul along
with Brutus. How justly the people acted, in looking more
to the character than the name of a citizen ! How unjustly
Brutus acted, in depriving of honour and country his colleague
in that new office, whom he might have deprived of his name,
if it were so offensive to him ! Such were the ills, such the
disasters, which fell out when the government was “ ordered
1 JZneid , vi. 820, etc. * His nephew.

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with justice and moderation.” Lucretius, too, who succeeded
Brutus, was carried off by disease before the end of that same
year. SoP. Valerius, who succeeded Collatinus, and M. Hora-
tius, who filled the vacancy occasioned by the death of Lucre-
tius, completed that disastrous and funereal year, which had
five consuls. Such was the year in which the Koman republic
inaugurated the new honour and office of the consulship.

17. Of the disasters which vexed the Roman republic after the inauguration of
the consulship , and qf the non-intervention of the gods of Rome.

After this, when their fears were gradually diminished, —
not because the wars ceased, but because they were not so
furious, — that period in which things were “ordered with
justice and moderation” drew to an end, and there followed
that state of matters which Sallust thus briefly sketches:
“ Then began the patricians to oppress the people as slaves,
to condemn them to death or scourging, as the kings had
done, to drive them from their holdings, and to tyrannize over
those who had no property to lose. The people, overwhelmed
by these oppressive measures, and most of all by usury, and
obliged to contribute both money and personal service to the
constant wars, at length took arms and seceded to Mount
Aventine and Mount Sacer, and thus secured for themselves
tribunes and protective laws. But it was only the second
Punic war that put an end on both sides to discord and
strife.” 1 But why should I spend time in writing such
things, or make others spend it in reading them ? Let the
terse summary of Sallust suffice to intimate the misery of the
republic through all that long period till the second Punic
war, — how it was distracted from without by unceasing wars,
and tom with civil broils and dissensions. So that those
victories they boast were not the substantial joys of the
happy, but the empty comforts of wretched men, and seduc-
tive incitements to turbulent men to concoct disasters upon
disasters. And let not the good and prudent Romans be
angry at our saying this ; and indeed we need neither depre-
cate nor denounce their anger, for we know they will harbour
none. For we speak no more severely than their own authors,
and much less elaborately and strikingly ; yet they diligently

1 Hist . i.

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read these authors, and compel their children to learn them.
But they who are angry, what would they do to me were I
to say what Sallust says ? “ Frequent mobs, seditions, and at
last civil wars, became common, while a few leading men on
whom the masses were dependent, affected supreme power
under the seemly pretence of seeking the good of senate and
people ; citizens were judged good or bad, without reference
to their loyalty to the republic (for all were equally corrupt) ;
but the wealthy and dangerously powerful were esteemed good
citizens, because they maintained the existing state of things.”
Now, if those historians judged that an honourable freedom of
speech required that they should not be silent regarding the
blemishes of their own state, which they have in many places
loudly applauded in their ignorance of that other and true city
in which citizenship is an everlasting dignity ; what does it
become us to do, whose liberty ought to be so much greater,
as our hope in God is better and more assured, when they
impute to our Christ the calamities of this age, in order that
men of the less instructed and weaker sort may be alienated
from that city in which alone eternal and blessed life can
be enjoyed ? Nor do we utter against their gods anything
more horrible than their own authors do, whom they read and
circulate. For, indeed, all that we have said we have derived
from them, and there is much more to say of a worse kind
which we are unable to say.

Where, then, were those gods who are supposed to be justly
worshipped for the slender and delusive prosperity of this
world, when the Romans, who were seduced to their service
by lying wiles, were harassed by such calamities ? Where
were they when Valerius the consul was killed while defend-
ing the Capitol, that had been fired by exiles and slaves ? He
was himself better able to defend the temple of Jupiter, than
that crowd of divinities with their most high and mighty king,
whose temple he came to the rescue of, were able to defend
him. Where were they when the city, worn out with unceas-
ing seditions, was waiting in some kind of calm for the return
of the ambassadors who had been sent to Athens to borrow
laws, and was desolated by dreadful famine and pestilence ?
Where were they when the people, again distressed with

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famine, created for the first time a prefect of the market ; and
when Spurius Melius, who, as the famine increased, distributed
com to the famishing masses, was accused of aspiring to royalty,
and at the instance of this same prefect, and on the authority
of the superannuated dictator L. Quintius, was put to death by
Quintus Servilius, master of the horse, — an event which occa-
sioned a serious and dangerous riot ? Where were they when
that very severe pestilence visited Home, on account of which
the people, after long and wearisome and useless supplications
of the helpless gods, conceived the idea of celebrating Lecti-
stemia, which had never been done before; that is to say,
they set couches in honour of the gods, which accounts for
the name of this sacred rite, or rather sacrilege?1 Where
were they when, during ten successive years of reverses, the
Homan army suffered frequent and great losses among the
Veians, and would have been destroyed but for the succour
of Furius Camillus, who was afterwards banished by an un-
grateful country? Where were they when the Gauls took,
sacked, burned, and desolated Home ? Where were they when
that memorable pestilence wrought such destruction, in which
Furius Camillus too perished, who first defended the ungrate-
ful republic from the Veians, and afterwards saved it from the
Gauls ? Nay, during this plague they introduced a new pes-
tilence of scenic entertainments, which spread its more fatal
contagion, not to the bodies, but the morals of the Homans ?
Where were they when another frightful pestilence visited the
city — I mean the poisonings imputed to an incredible number
of noble Homan matrons, whose characters were infected with
a disease more fatal than any plague ? Or when both con-
suls at the head of the army were beset by the Samnites in
the Caudine Forks, and forced to strike a shameful treaty,
600 Homan knights being kept as hostages; while the troops,
having laid down their arms, and being stripped of everything,
were made to pass under the yoke with one garment each ?
Or when, in the midst of a serious pestilence, lightning struck
the Homan camp and killed many? Or when Home was
driven, by the violence of another intolerable plague, to send
to Epidaurus for iEsculapius as a god of medicine ; since the
1 Lectistemia, from lectus, a couch, aud slemo, I spread.

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frequent adulteries of Jupiter in his youth had not perhaps
left this king of all who so long reigned in the Capitol, any
leisure for the study of medicine ? Or when, at one time,
the Lucanians, Brutians, Samnites, Tuscans, and Senonian
Gauls conspired against Borne, and first slew her ambassadors,
then overthrew an army under the praetor, putting to the sword
13,000 men, besides the commander and seven tribunes ? Or
when the people, after the serious and long-continued dis-
turbances at Borne, at last plundered the city and withdrew
to Janiculus ; a danger so grave, that Hortensius was created
dictator, — an office which they had recourse to only in extreme
emergencies ; and he, having brought back the people, died
while yet he retained his office, — an event without precedent
in the case of any dictator, and which was a shame to those
gods who had now ASsculapius among them ?

At that time, indeed, so many wars were everywhere en-
gaged in, that through scarcity of soldiers they enrolled for
military service the proletarii , who received this name, be-
cause, being too poor to equip for military service, they had
leisure to beget offspring.1 Pyrrhus, king of Greece, and at
that time of wide-spread renown, was invited by the Tarentines
to enlist himself against Borne. It was to him that Apollo,
when consulted regarding the issue of his enterprise, uttered
with some pleasantry so ambiguous an oracle, that which-
ever alternative happened, the god himself should be counted
divine. For he so worded the oracle,* that whether Pyrrhus
was conquered by the Bomans, or the Bomans by Pyrrhus,
the soothsaying god would securely await the issue. And
then what frightful massacres of both armies ensued ! Yet
Pyrrhus remained conqueror, and would have been able now
to proclaim Apollo a true diviner, as he understood the oracle,
had not the Bomans been the conquerors in the next engage-
ment. And while such disastrous wars were being waged, a
terrible disease broke out among the women. For the pregnant
women died before delivery. And iEsculapius, I fancy, excused
himself in this matter on the ground that he professed to be
arch-physician, not midwife. Cattle, too, similarly perished ;

1 Proletarius, from prole*, offspring.

* The oracle ran : “ Dico te, Pyrrhe, vincere posse Romanos.**

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so that it was believed that the whole race of animals was
destined to become extinct Then what shall I say of that
memorable winter in which the weather was so incredibly
severe, that in the Forum frightfully deep snow lay for forty
days together, and the Tiber was frozen ? Had such things
happened in our time, what accusations we should have heard
from our enemies ! And that other great pestilence, which
raged so long and carried off so many ; what shall I say of
it ? Spite of all the drugs of iEsculapius, it only grew worse
in its second year, till at last recourse was had to the Sibyl-
line books, — a kind of oracle which, as Cicero says in his De
IHviruUione, owes significance to its interpreters, who make
doubtful conjectures as they can or as they wish. In this
instance, the cause of the plague was said to be that so many
temples had been used as private residences. And thus
^Esculapius for the present escaped the charge of either igno-
minious negligence or want of skill. But why were so many
allowed to occupy sacred tenements without interference, un-
less because supplication had long been addressed in vain to
such a crowd of gods, and so by degrees the sacred places were
deserted of worshippers, and being thus vacant, could without
offence be put at least to some human uses ? And the temples,
which were at that time laboriously recognised and restored
that the plague might be stayed, fell afterwards into disuse,
and were again devoted to the same human uses. Had they
not thus lapsed into obscurity, it could not have been pointed
to as proof of Varro’s great erudition, that in his work on
sacred places he cites so many that were unknown. Mean-
while, the restoration of the temples procured no cure of the
plague, but only a fine excuse for the gods.

18. The disasters suffered by the Romans in the Punic wars , which were not
mitigated by the protection qf the gods .

In the Punic wars, again, when victory hung so long in
the balance between the two kingdoms, when two powerful
nations were straining every nerve and using all their re-
sources against one another, how many smaller kingdoms
were crushed, how many large and flourishing cities were de-
molished, how many states were overwhelmed and ruined, how
many districts and lands far and near were desolated ! How

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often were the victors on either side vanquished ! What
multitudes of men, both of those actually in arms and
of others, were destroyed! What huge navies, too, were
crippled in engagements, or were sunk by every kind of
marine disaster ! Were we to attempt to recount or mention
these calamities, we should become writers of history. At
that period Rome was mightily perturbed, and resorted to
vain and ludicrous expedients. On the authority of the
Sibylline books, the secular games were re-appointed, which
had been inaugurated a century before, but had faded into
oblivion in happier times. The games consecrated to the in-
fernal gods were also renewed by the pontiffs ; for they, too,
had sunk into disuse in the better times. And no wonder ;
for when they were renewed, the great abundance of dying
men made all hell rejoice at its riches, and give itself up to
sport : for certainly the ferocious wars, and disastrous quarrels,
and bloody victories — now on one side, and now on the other
— though most calamitous to men, afforded great sport and
a rich banquet to the devils. But in the first Punic war
there was no more disastrous event than the Roman defeat in
which Regulus was taken. We made mention of him in the
two former books as an incontestably great man, who had
before conquered and subdued the Carthaginians, and who
would have put an end to the first Punic war, had not an
inordinate appetite for praise and glory prompted him to im-
pose on the worn-out Carthaginians harder conditions than
they could bear. If the unlooked-for captivity and unseemly
bondage of this man, his fidelity to his oath, and his surpass-
ingly cruel death, do not bring a blush to the face of the gods,
it is true that they are brazen and bloodless.

Nor were there wanting at that time very heavy disasters
within the city itself For the Tiber was extraordinarily
flooded, and destroyed almost all the lower parts of the city ;
some buildings being carried away by the violence of the
torrent, while others were soaked to rottenness by the water
that stood round them even after the flood was gone. This
visitation was followed by a fire which was still more de-
structive, for it consumed some of the loftier buildings round
the Forum, and spared not even its own proper temple, that of

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Vesta, in which virgins chosen for this honour, or rather for
this punishment, had been employed in conferring, as it were,
everlasting life on fire, by ceaselessly feeding it with fresh
fuel. But at the time we speak of, the fire in the temple was
not content with being kept alive : it raged. And when the
virgins, scared by its vehemence, were unable to save those
fatal images which had already brought destruction on three
cities 1 in which they had been received, Metellus the priest,
forgetful of his own safety, rushed in and rescued the sacred
things, though he was half roasted in doing so. For either
the fire did not recognise even him, or else the goddess of fire
was there, — a goddess who would not have fled from the fire
supposing she had been there. But here you see how a man
could be of greater service to Vesta than she could be to him.
Now if these gods could not avert the fire from themselves,
what help against flames or flood could they bring to the state
of which they were the reputed guardians ? Facts have shown
that they were useless. These objections of ours would be
idle if our adversaries maintained that their idols are conse-
crated rather as symbols of things eternal, than to secure the
blessings of time ; and that thus, though the symbols, like all
material and visible things, might perish, no damage thereby
resulted to the things for the sake of which they had been
consecrated, while, as for the images themselves, they could be
renewed again for the same purposes they had formerly served.
But with lamentable blindness, they suppose that, through the
intervention of perishable gods, the earthly well-being and tem-
poral prosperity of the state can be preserved from perishing.
And so, when they are reminded that even when the gods re-
mained among them this well-being and prosperity were blighted,
they blush to change the opinion they are unable to defend.

19. Of the calamity of the second Punic war , which consumed the strength
of both parties.

As to the second Punic war, it were tedious to recount the
disasters it brought on both the nations engaged in so pro-
tracted and shifting a war, that (by the acknowledgment even
of those writers who have made it their object not so much to
narrate the wars as to eulogize the dominion of Rome) the

1 Troy, Lavinia, Alba.

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people who remained victorious were less like conquerors than
conquered. For, when Hannibal poured out of Spain over the
Pyrenees, and overran Gaul, and burst through the Alps, and
during his whole course gathered strength by plundering and
subduing as he went, and inundated Italy like a torrent, how
bloody were the wars, and how continuous the engagements,
that were fought ! How often were the Homans vanquished !
How many towns went over to the enemy, and how many
were taken and subdued ! What fearful battles there were,
and how often did the defeat of the Homans shed lustre on the
arms of Hannibal ! And what shall I say of the wonderfully
crushing defeat at Cannae, where even Hannibal, cruel as he
was, was yet sated with the blood of his bitterest enemies, and
gave orders that they be spared ? From this field of battle he
sent to Carthage three bushels of gold rings, signifying that so
much of the rank of Home had that day fallen, that it was
easier to give an idea of it by measure than by numbers ; and
that the frightful slaughter of the common rank and file whose
bodies lay undistinguished by the ring, and who were nume-
rous in proportion to their meanness, was rather to be conjec-
tured than accurately reported. In fact, such was the scarcity
of soldiers after this, that the Homans impressed their criminals
on the promise of impunity, and their slaves by the bribe of
liberty, and out of these infamous classes did not. so much
recruit as create an army. But these slaves, or, to give them
all their titles, these freedmen who were enlisted to do battle
for the republic of Home, lacked arms. And so they took
arms from the temples, as if the Homans were saying to their
gods : Lay down those arms you have held so long in vain, if
by chance our slaves may be able to use to purpose what you,
our gods, have been impotent to use. At that time, too, the
public treasury was too low to pay the soldiers, and private
resources were used for public purposes; and so generously
did individuals contribute of their property, that, saving the
gold ring and bulla which each wore, the pitiful mark of his
rank, no senator, and much less any of the other orders and
tribes, reserved any gold for his own use. But if in our day
they were reduced to this poverty, who would be able to
endure their reproaches, barely endurable as they are now,

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when more money is spent on actors for the sake of a super-
fluous gratification, than was then disbursed to the legions ?

20. Of the destruction of the Saguntines, who received no help from the Roman
gods , though perishing on account qf their fidelity to Rome.

But among all the disasters of the second Punic war, there
occurred none more lamentable, or calculated to excite deeper
complaint, than the fate of the Saguntines. This city of Spain,
eminently friendly to Borne, was destroyed by its fidelity to
the Boman people. For when Hannibal had broken treaty with
the Bomans, he sought occasion for provoking them to war,
and accordingly made a fierce assault upon Saguntum. When
this was reported at Borne, ambassadors were sent to Hannibal,
urging him to raise the siege ; and when this remonstrance was
neglected, they .proceeded to Carthage, lodged complaint against
the breaking of the treaty, and returned to Borne without ac-
complishing their object Meanwhile the siege went on ; and
in the eighth or ninth month, this opulent but ill-fated city,
dear as it was to its own state and to Borne, was taken, and
subjected to treatment which one cannot read, much less nar-
rate, without horror. And yet, because it bears directly on
the matter in hand, I will briefly touch upon it. First, then,
famine wasted the Saguntines, so that even human corpses
were eaten by some : so at least it is recorded. Subsequently,
when thoroughly worn out, that they might at least escape the
ignominy of falling into the hands of Hannibal, they publicly
erected a huge funeral pile, and cast themselves into its flames,
while at the same time they slew their children and them-
selves with the sword. Could these gods, these debauchees and
gourmands, whose mouths water for fat sacrifices, and whose
lips utter lying divinations, — could they not do anything in a
case like this ? Could they not interfere for the preservation of
a city closely allied to the Boman people, or prevent it perish-
ing for its fidelity to that alliance of which they themselves
had been the mediators ? Saguntum, faithfully keeping the
treaty it had entered into before these gods, and to which it
had firmly bound itself by an oath, was besieged, taken, and
destroyed by a perjured person. If afterwards, when Hannibal
was close to the walls of Borne, it was the gods who terrified
him with lightning and tempest, and drove him to a distance.

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why, I ask, did they not thus interfere before ? For I make
bold to say, that this demonstration with the tempest would
have been more honourably made in defence of the allies of
Rome — who were in danger on account of their reluctance to
break faith with the Romans, and had no resources of their
own — than in defence of the Romans themselves, who were
fighting in their own cause, and had abundant resources to
oppose Hannibal. If, then, they had been the guardians of
Roman prosperity and glory, they would have preserved that
glory from the stain of this Saguntine disaster ; and how silly
it is to believe that Rome was preserved from destruction at
the hands of Hannibal by the guardian care of those gods who
were unable to rescue the city of Saguntum from perishing
through its fidelity to the alliance of Rome. If the popula-
tion of Saguntum had been Christian, and had suffered as it
did for the Christian faith (though, of course, Christians would
not have used fire and sword against their own persons), they
would have suffered with that hope which springs from faith
in Christ — the hope not of a brief temporal reward, but of un-
ending and eternal bliss. What, then, will the advocates and
apologists of these gods say in their defence, when charged
with the blood of these Saguntines ; for they are professedly
worshipped and invoked for this very purpose of securing pro-
sperity in this fleeting and transitory life ? Can anything be
said but what was alleged in the case of Regulus’ death ? For
though there is a difference between the two cases, the one
being an individual, the other a whole community, yet the
cause of destruction was in both cases the keeping of their
plighted troth. For it was this which made Regulus willing
to return to his enemies, and this which made the Saguntines
unwilling to revolt to their enemies. Does, then, the keeping
of faith provoke the gods to anger ? Or is it possible that not
only individuals, but even entire communities, perish while
the gods are propitious to them ? Let our adversaries choose
which alternative they wilL If, on the one hand, those gods
are enraged at the keeping of faith, let them enlist perjured
persons as their worshippers. If, on the other hand, men and
states can suffer great and terrible calamities, and at last perish
while favoured by the gods, then does their worship not pro-1

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duce happiness as its fruit. Let those, therefore, who suppose
that they have fallen into distress because their religious wor-
ship has been abolished, lay aside their anger ; for it were quite
possible that did the gods not only remain with them, but re-
gard them with favour, they might yet be left to mourn an
unhappy lot, or might, even like Regulus and the Saguntines,
be horribly tormented, and at last perish miserably.

21. Of the ingratitude of Rome to Scipio , its deliverer , and of its manners
during the period which SaUust describes as the best

Omitting many things, that I may not exceed the limits
of the work I have proposed to myself, I come to the epoch
between the second and last Punic wars, during which, accord-
ing to Sallust, the Komans lived with the greatest virtue and
concord. Now, in this period of virtue and harmony, the
great Scipio, the liberator of Home and Italy, who had with
surprising ability brought to a close the second Punic war —
that horrible, destructive, dangerous contest — who had defeated
Hannibal and subdued Carthage, and whose whole life is said
to have been dedicated to the gods, and cherished in their
temples, — this Scipio, after such a triumph, was obliged to
yield to the accusations of his enemies, and to leave his
country, which his valour had saved and liberated, to spend
the remainder of his days in the town of Litemum, so
indifferent to a recall from exile, that he is said to have
given orders that not even his remains should lie in his
ungrateful country. It was at that time also that the pro-
consul Cn. Manlius, after subduing the Galatians, introduced
into Home the luxury of Asia, more destructive than all
hostile armies. It was then that iron bedsteads and expen-
sive carpets were first used; then, too, that female singers
were admitted at banquets, and other licentious abominations
were introduced. But at present I meant to speak, not of the
evils men voluntarily practise, but of those they suffer in spite
of themselves. So that the case of Scipio, who succumbed to
his enemies, and died in exile from the country he had rescued,
was mentioned by me as being pertinent to the present dis-
cussion; for this was the reward he received from those
Roman gods whose temples he saved from Hannibal, and
who are worshipped only for the sake of securing temporal

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happiness. But since Sallust, as we have seen, declares that
the manners of Borne were never better than at that time, I
therefore judged it right to mention the Asiatic luxury then
introduced, that it might be seen that what he says is true, only
when that period is compared with the others, during which
the morals were certainly worse, and the factions more violent
For at that time — I mean between the second and third Punic
war — that notorious Lex Voconia was passed, which prohibited
a man from making a woman, even an only daughter, his heir;
than which law I am at a loss to conceive what could be
more unjust It is true that in the interval between these
two Punic wars the misery of Borne was somewhat less.
Abroad, indeed, their forces were consumed by wars, yet also
consoled by victories; while at home there were not such
disturbances as at other times. But when the last Punic war
had terminated in the utter destruction of Borne’s rival, which
quickly succumbed to the other Scipio, who thus earned for
himself the surname of Afncanus, then the Boman republic was
overwhelmed with such a host of ills, which sprang from the
corrupt manners induced by prosperity and security, that the
sudden overthrow of Carthage is seen to have injured Borne
more seriously than her long-continued hostility. During the
whole subsequent period down to the time of Caesar Augustus,
who seems to have entirely deprived the Bomans of liberty, —
a liberty, indeed, which in their own judgment was no longer
glorious, but full of broils and dangers, and which now was
quite enervated and languishing, — and who submitted all things
again to the will of a monarch, and infused as it were a new
life into the sickly old age of the republic, and inaugurated a
fresh r&gime, ; — during this whole period, I say, many military
disasters were sustained on a variety of occasions, all of which
I here pass by. There was specially the treaty of Numantia,
blotted as it was with extreme disgrace; for the sacred
chickens, they say, flew out of the coop, and thus augured
disaster to Mancinus the consul ; just as if, during all these
years in which that little city of Numantia had withstood the
besieging army of Borne, and had become a terror to the
republic, the other generals had all marched against it under
unfavourable auspices.

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22. Of the edict of Mithridates , commanding that ail Roman citizens found in
Asia should be slain .

These things, I say, I pass in silence ; but I can by no
means be silent regarding the order given by Mithridates,
king of Asia, that on one day all Roman citizens residing
anywhere in Asia (where great numbers of them were follow-
ing their private business) should be put to death : and this
order was executed. How miserable a spectacle was then
presented, when each man was suddenly and treacherously
murdered wherever he happened to be, in the field or on the
road, in the town, in his own home, or in the street, in market
or temple, in bed or at table ! Think of the groans of the
dying, the tears of the spectators, and even of the executioners
themselves. For how cruel a necessity was it that compelled
the hosts of these victims, not only to see these abominable
butcheries in their own houses, but even to perpetrate them :
to change their countenance suddenly from the bland kindli-
ness of friendship, and in the midst of peace set about the
business of war ; and, shall I say, give and receive wounds,
the slain being pierced in body, the slayer in spirit ! Had
all these murdered persons, then, despised auguries? Had
they neither public nor household gods to consult when they
left their homes and set out on that fatal journey ? If they
had not, our adversaries have no reason to complain of these
Christian times in this particular, since long ago the Romans
despised auguries as idle. If, on the other hand, they did
consult omens, let them tell us what good they got thereby,
even when such things were not prohibited, but authorized,
by human, if not by divine law.

23. Of the internal disasters which vexed the Roman republic, and followed a
portentous madness which seized all the domestic animals.

But let us now mention, as succinctly as possible, those
disasters which were still more vexing, because nearer home ;
I mean those discords which are erroneously called civil, since
they destroy civil interests. The seditions had now become
urban wars, in which blood was freely shed, and in which par-
ties raged against one another, not with wrangling and verbal
contention, but with physical force and arms. What a sea of
Roman blood was shed, what desolations and devastations were

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occasioned in Italy by wars social, wars servile, wars civil I
Before the Latins began the social war against Rome, all the
animals used in the service of man — dogs, horses, asses, oxen,
and all the rest that are subject to man — suddenly grew wild,
and forgot their domesticated tameness, forsook their stalls
and wandered at large, and could not be closely approached
either by strangers or their own masters without danger. If
this was a portent, how serious a calamity must have been
portended by a plague which, whether portent or no, was in
itself a serious calamity! Had it happened in our day, the
heathen would have been more rabid against us * than their
animals were against them.

24. Of the civil dissension occasioned by the sedition qf the Gracchi .

The civil wars originated in the seditions which the
Gracchi excited regarding the agrarian laws; for they were
minded to divide among the people the lands which were
wrongfully possessed by the nobility. But to reform an
abuse of so long standing was an enterprise full of peril, or
rather, as the event proved, of destruction. For what disasters
accompanied the death of the elder Gracchus ! what slaughter
ensued when, shortly after, the younger brother met the same
fate ! For noble and ignoble were indiscriminately massacred;
and this not by legal authority and procedure, but by mobs
and armed rioters. After the death of the younger Gracchus,
the consul Lucius Opimius, who had given battle to him
within the city, and had defeated and put to the sword both
himself and his confederates, and had massacred many of the
citizens, instituted a judicial examination of others, and is
reported to have put to death as many as 3000 men. From
this it may be gathered how many fell in the riotous en-
counters, when the result even of a judicial investigation was
so bloody. The assassin of Gracchus himself sold his head
to the consul for its weight in gold, such being the previous
agreement In this massacre, too, Marcus Fulvius, a man of
consular rank, with all his children, was put to death.

25. Of the temple qf Concord , which was erected by a decree of the senate on the
scene of these seditions and massacres .

A pretty decree of the senate it was, truly, by which the
temple of Concord was built on thfc spot where that disastrous

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rising had taken place, and where so many citizens of every
rank had fallen.1 I suppose it was that the monument of the
Gracchi’s punishment might strike the eye and affect the
memory of the pleaders. But what was this but to deride
the gods, by building a temple to that goddess who, had she
been in the city, would not have suffered herself to be torn
by such dissensions ? Or was it that Concord was chargeable
with that bloodshed because she had deserted the minds of
the citizens, and was therefore incarcerated in that temple ?
For if they had any regard to consistency, why did they not
rather erect on that site a temple of Discord ? Or is there
a reason for Concord being a goddess while Discord is none ?
Does the distinction of Labeo hold here, who would have
made the one a good, the other an evil deity ? — a distinction
which seems to have been suggested to him by the mere fact
of his observing at Borne a temple to Fever as well as one to
Health. But, on the same ground. Discord as well as Concord
ought to be deified. A hazardous venture the Bomans made
in provoking so wicked a goddess, and in forgetting that the
destruction of Troy had been occasioned by her taking offence.
For, being indignant that she was not invited with the other
gods [to the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis], she created dis-
sension among the three goddesses by sending in the golden
apple, which occasioned strife in heaven, victory to Venus,
the rape of Helen, and the destruction of Troy. Wherefore,
if she was perhaps offended that the Bomans had not thought
her worthy of a temple among the other gods in their city,
and therefore disturbed the state with such tumults, to how
much fiercer passion would she be roused when she saw the
temple of her adversary erected on the scene of that massacre,
or, in other words, on the scene of her own handiwork } Those
wise and learned men are enraged at our laughing at these
follies ; and yet, being worshippers of good and bad divinities
alike, they cannot escape this dilemma about Concord and
Discord: either they have neglected the worship of these
goddesses, and preferred Fever and War, to whom there are
shrines erected of great antiquity, or they have worshipped

1 Under the inscription on the temple some person wrote the line, “ Vecordi®
opus sedem facit Concordia ” — The work of discord makes the temple of Concord. .

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them, and after all Concord has abandoned them, and Discord
has tempestuously hurled them into civil wars.

20. Of the various kinds of wars which followed the building qf the temple of

Concord .

But they supposed that, in erecting the temple of Concord
within the view of the orators, as a memorial of the punish-
ment and death of the Gracchi, they were raising an effectual
obstacle to sedition. How much effect it had, is indicated by
the still more deplorable wars that followed. For after this
the orators endeavoured not to avoid the example of the
Gracchi, but to surpass their projects ; as did Lucius Satur-
ninus, a tribune of the people, and Caius Servilius the praetor,
and some time after Marcus Drusus, all of whom stirred sedi-
tions which first of all occasioned bloodshed, and then the
social wars by which Italy was grievously injured, and reduced
to a piteously desolate and wasted condition. Then followed the
servile war and the civil wars ; and in them what battles were
fought, and what blood was shed, so that almost all the peoples
of Italy, which formed the main strength of the Homan empire,
were conquered as if they were barbarians ! Then even histo-
rians themselves find it difficult to explain how the servile war
was begun by a very few, certainly less than seventy gladiators,
what numbers of fierce and cruel men attached themselves to
these, how many of the Roman generals this band defeated,
and how it laid waste many districts and cities. And that
was not the only servile war : the province of Macedonia, and
subsequently Sicily and the sea-coast, were also depopulated
by bands of slaves. And who can adequately describe either
the horrible atrocities which the pirates first committed, or the
wars they afterwards maintained against Rome ?

27. Of the civil war between Marius and Sylla.

But when Marius, stained with the blood of his fellow-
citizens, whom the rage of party had sacrificed, was in his turn
vanquished and driven from the city, it had scarcely time to
breathe freely, when, to use the words of Cicero, “ Cinna and
Marius together returned and took possession of it Then,
indeed, the foremost men in the state were put to death, its
lights quenched. Sylla afterwards avenged this cruel victory ;

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but we need not say with what loss of life, and with what ruin
to the republic.”1 For of this vengeance, which was more
destructive than if the crimes which it punished had been
committed with impunity, Lucan says : “ The cure was ex-
cessive, and too closely resembled the disease. The guilty
perished, but when none but the guilty survived : and then
private hatred and anger, unbridled by law, were allowed free
indulgence.”* In that war between Marius and Sylla, besides
those who fell in the field of battle, the city, too, was filled
with corpses in its streets, squares, markets, theatres, and
temples ; so that it is not easy to reckon whether the victors
slew more before or after victory, that they might be, or be-
cause they were, victors. As soon as Marius triumphed, and
returned from exile, besides the butcheries everywhere per-
petrated, the head of the consul Octavius was exposed on the
rostrum ; Caesar and Fimbria were assassinated in their own
houses ; the two Crassi, father and son, were murdered in one
another's sight ; Bebius and Numitorius were disembowelled by
being dragged with hooks ; Catulus escaped the hands of his
enemies by drinking poison ; Merula, the flamen of Jupiter,
cut his veins and made a libation of his own blood to his god.
Moreover, every one whose salutation Marius did not answer
by giving his hand, was at once cut down before his face.

28. Of the victory of 8yUa , the avenger of the cruelties of Marius.

Then followed the victory of Sylla, the so-called avenger of
the cruelties of Marius. But not only was his victory pur-
chased with great bloodshed ; but when hostilities were finished,
hostility survived, and the subsequent peace was bloody as the
war. To the former and still recent massacres of the elder
Marius, the younger Marius and Carbo, who belonged to the
same party, added greater atrocities. For when Sylla ap-
proached, and they despaired not only of victory, but of life
itself, they made a promiscuous massacre of friends and foes.
And, not satisfied with staining every corner of Rome with
blood, they besieged the senate, and led forth the senators to
death from the curia as from a prison. Mucius Scaevola the
pontiff was slain at the altar of Vesta, which he had clung to
1 Cicero, in CatUm. iii. sub. Jin. * Lucan, PharsaL ii. 142-146.

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because no spot in Rome was more sacred than her temple ;
and his blood well-nigh extinguished the fire which was kept
alive by the constant care of the virgins. Then Sylla entered
the city victorious, after having slaughtered in the Villa Publica,
not by combat, but by an order, 7000 men who had sur-
rendered, and were therefore unarmed ; so fierce was the rage
of peace itself, even after the rage of war was extinct More-
over, throughout the whole city every partisan of Sylla slew
whom he pleased, so that the number of deaths went beyond
computation, till it was suggested to Sylla that he should allow
some to survive, that the victors might not be destitute of
subjects. Then this furious and promiscuous licence to murder
was checked, and much relief was expressed at the publication
of the proscription list, containing though it did the death-
warrant of two thousand men of the highest ranks, the sena-
torial and equestrian. The large number was indeed sadden-
ing, but it was consolatory that a limit was fixed ; nor was the
grief at the numbers slain so great as the joy that the rest
were secure. But this very security, hard-hearted as it was,
could not but bemoan the exquisite torture applied to some of
those who had been doomed to dia For one was tom to
pieces by the unarmed hands of the executioners ; men treat-
ing a living man more savagely than wild beasts are used to
tear an abandoned corpse. Another had his eyes dug out, and
his limbs cut away bit by bit, and was forced to live a long
while, or rather to die a long while, in such tortura Some
celebrated cities were put up to auction, like farms ; and one
was collectively condemned to slaughter, just as an individual
criminal would be condemned to death. These things were
done in peace when the war was over, not that victory might
be more speedily obtained, but that, after being obtained, it
might not be thought lightly of Peace vied with war in
cruelty, and surpassed it : for while war overthrew armed
hosts, peace slew the defenceless. War gave liberty to him
who was attacked, to strike if he could ; peace granted to the
survivors not life, but an unresisting death.

29. A comparison of (he disasters which Some experienced during the Gothic

and Gallic invasions, with those occasioned by the authors of the civil wars .

What fury of foreign nations, what barbarian ferocity, can

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compare with this victory of citizens over citizens ? Which
was more disastrous, more hideous, more bitter to Borne : the
recent Gothic and the old Gallic invasion, or the cruelty dis-
played by Marius and Sylla and their partisans against men
who were members of the same body as themselves ? The
Gauls, indeed, massacred all the senators they found in any part
of the city except the Capitol, which alone was defended ; but
they at least sold life to those who were in the Capitol, though
they might have starved them out if they could not have
stormed it The Goths, again, spared so many senators, that
it is the more surprising that they killed any. But Sylla,
while Marius was still living, established himself as conqueror
in the Capitol, which the Gauls had not violated, and thence
issued his death-warrants ; and when Marius had escaped by
flight, though destined to return more fierce and bloodthirsty
than ever, Sylla issued from the Capitol even decrees of the
senate for the slaughter and confiscation of the property of
many citizens. Then, when Sylla left, what did the Marian
faction hold sacred or spare, when they gave no quarter even
to Mucius, a citizen, a senator, a pontiff, and though clasping
in piteous embrace the very altar in which, they say, reside
the destinies of Borne ? And that final proscription list of
Sylla’s, not to mention countless other massacres, despatched
more senators than the Goths could even plunder.

80. Of the connection qf the ware which with great eeverity and frequency
followed one another before the advent qf Christ.

With what effrontery, then, with what assurance, with what
impudence, with what folly, or rather insanity, do they refuse
to impute these disasters to their own gods, and impute the
present to our Christ ! These bloody civil wars, more distressing,
by the avowal of their own historians, than any foreign wars,
and which were pronounced to be not merely calamitous, but
absolutely ruinous to the republic, began long before the coming
of Christ, and gave birth to one another ; so that a concatena-
tion of unjustifiable causes led from the wars of Marius and
Sylla to those of Sertorius and Catiline, of whom the one was
proscribed, the other brought up by Sylla; from this to the
war of Lepidus and Catulus, of whom the one wished to rescind,
the other to defend the acts of Sylla ; from this to the war of

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Pompey and Caesar, of whom Pompey had been a partisan of
Sylla, whose power he equalled or even surpassed, while Caesar
condemned Pompey’s power because it was not his own, and
yet exceeded it when Pompey was defeated and slain. From
him the chain of civil wars extended to the second Caesar,
afterwards called Augustus, and in whose reign Christ was
bom. For even Augustus himself waged many civil wars ;
and in these wars many of the foremost men perished, among
them that skilful manipulator of the republic, Cicero. Caius
[Julius] Caesar, when he had conquered Pompey, though he
used his victory with clemency, and granted to men of the op-
posite faction both life and honours, was suspected of aiming
at royalty, and was assassinated in the curia by a party of
noble senators, who had conspired to defend the liberty of the
republic. His power was then coveted by Antony, a man of
very different character, polluted and debased by every kind of
vice, who was strenuously resisted by Cicero on the same plea
of defending the liberty of the republic. At this juncture that
other Caesar, the adopted son of Caius, and afterwards, as I
said, known by the name of Augustus, had made his dibut as
a young man of remarkable genius. This youthful Caesar was
favoured by Cicero, in order that his influence might counteract
that of Antony ; for he hoped that Caesar would overthrow and
blast the power of Antony, and establish a free state, — so blind
and unaware of the future was he : for that very young man,
whose advancement and influence he was fostering, allowed
Cicero to be killed as the seal of an alliance with Antony, and
subjected to his own rule the very liberty of the republic in
defence of which he had made so many orations.

31. Thai it is effrontery to impute the present troubles to Christ and the pro -
hibition of polytheistic worship , since even when the gods were worshipped
such calamities hefdt the people.

Let those who have no gratitude to Christ for His great
benefits, blame their own gods for these heavy disasters. For
certainly when these occurred the altars of the gods were kept
blazing, and there rose the mingled fragrance of “ Sabaean
incense and fresh garlands ; ” 1 the priests were clothed with
honour, the shrines were maintained in splendour; sacrifices,
1 Virgil, JZneid, L 417.

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games, sacred ecstasies, were common in the temples ; while the
blood of the citizens was being so freely shed, not only in
remote places, but among the very altars of the gods. Cicero
did not choose to seek sanctuary in a temple, because Mucius
had sought it there in vain. But they who most unpardon-
ably calumniate this Christian era, are the very men who
either themselves fled for asylum to the places specially dedi-
cated to Christ, or were led there by the barbarians that they
might be safe. In short, not to recapitulate the many
instances I have cited, and not to add to their number others
which it were tedious to enumerate, this one thing I am per-
suaded of, and this every impartial judgment will readily
acknowledge, that if the human race had received Christianity
before the Punic wars, and if the same desolating calamities
which these wars brought upon Europe and Africa had fol-
lowed the introduction of Christianity, there is no one of those
who now accuse us who would not have attributed them to
our religion. How intolerable would their accusations have
been, at least so far as the Homans are concerned, if the
Christian religion had been received and diffused prior to the
invasion of the Gauls, or to the ruinous floods and fires which
desolated Home, or to those most calamitous of all events, the
civil wars ! And those other disasters, which were of so strange
a nature that they were reckoned prodigies, had they happened
since the Christian era, to whom but to the Christians would
they have imputed these as crimes ? I do not speak of those
things which were rather surprising than hurtful, — oxen speak-
ing, unborn infants articulating some words in their mothers*
wombs, serpents flying, hens and women being changed into
the other sex ; and other similar prodigies which, whether true
or false, are recorded not in their imaginative, but in their his-
torical works, and which do not injure, but only astonish men.
But when it rained earth, when it rained chalk, when it rained
stones — not hailstones, but real stones — this certainly was
calculated to do serious damage. We have read in their books
that the fires of Etna, pouring down from the top of the moun-
tain to the neighbouring shore, caused the sea to boil, so that
rocks were burnt up, and the pitch of ships began to run, — a
phenomenon incredibly surprising, but at the same time no

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less hurtful By the same violent heat, they relate that on
another occasion Sicily was filled with cinders, so that the
houses of the city Catina were destroyed and buried under
them, — a calamity which moved the Romans to pity them, and
remit their tribute for that year. One may also read that
Africa, which had by that time become a province of Rome,
was visited by a prodigious multitude of locusts, which, after
consuming the fruit and foliage of the trees, were driven into
the sea in one vast and measureless cloud ; so that when they
were drowned and cast upon the shore the air was polluted,
and so serious a pestilence produced that in the kingdom of
Masinissa alone they say there perished 800,000 persons,
besides a much greater number in the neighbouring districts.
At Utica they assure us that, of 30,000 soldiers then garrison-
ing it, there survived only ten. Yet which of these disasters,
suppose they happened now, would not be attributed to the
Christian religion by those who thus thoughtlessly accuse us,
and whom we are compelled to answer ? And yet to their
own gods they attribute none of these things, though they
worship them for the sake of escaping lesser calamities of the
same kind, and do not reflect that they who formerly wor-
shipped them were not preserved from these serious disasters.

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BOOK FOURTH.1

ARGUMENT.

IN THIS BOOK IT 18 PROVED THAT THE EXTENT AND LONG DURATION OP THE
ROMAN EMPIRE 18 TO BE ASCRIBED, NOT TO JOVE OR THE GODS OF THE
HEATHEN, TO WHOM INDIVIDUALLY SCARCE EVEN SINGLE THINGS AND
THE VERY BA8EST FUNCTIONS WERE BELIEVED TO BE ENTRUSTED, BUT TO
THE ONE TRUE GOD, THE AUTHOR OP FELICITY, BY WHOSE POWER AND
JUDGMENT EARTHLY KINGDOMS ARB POUNDED AND MAINTAINED.

1. 0/ the things which have been discussed in (he first book .

HAYING begun to speak of the city of God, I have
thought it necessary first of all to reply to its enemies,
who, eagerly pursuing earthly joys, and gaping after transitory
things, throw the blame of all the sorrow they suffer in them
— rather through the compassion of God in admonishing,
than His severity in punishing — on the Christian religion,
which is the one salutary and true religion. And since there
is among them also an unlearned rabble, they are stirred up
as by the authority of the learned to hate us more bitterly,
thinking in their inexperience that things which have hap-
pened unwontedly in their days were not wont to happen in
other times gone by ; and whereas this opinion of theirs is con-
firmed even by those who know that it is false, and yet dis-
semble their knowledge in order that they may seem to have
just cause for murmuring against us, it was necessary, from
books in which their authors recorded and published the his-
tory of bygone times that it might be known, to demonstrate
that it is far otherwise than they think; and at the same
time to teach that the false gods, whom they openly wor-
shipped, or still worship in secret, are most unclean spirits,
and most malignant and deceitful demons, even to such a
pitch that they take delight in crimes which, whether real or

1 In Augustine's letter to Evodius (169), which was written towards the end
of the year 415, he mentions that this fourth book and the following one were
begun and finished during that same year.

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only fictitious, ore yet their own, which it has been their will
to have celebrated in honour of them at their own festivals ;
so that human infirmity cannot be called back from the per-
petration of damnable deeds, so long as authority is furnished
for imitating them that seems even divine. These things we
have proved, not from our own conjectures, but partly from
recent memory, because we ourselves have seen such things
celebrated, and to such deities, partly from the writings of
those who have left these things on record to posterity, not as
if in reproach, but as in honour of their own gods. Thus
Varro, a most learned man among them, and of the weightiest
authority, when he made separate books concerning things
human and things divine, distributing some among the human,
others among the divine, according to the special dignity of
each, placed the scenic plays not at all among things human,
but among things divine ; though, certainly, if only there
were good and honest men in the state, the scenic plays ought
not to be allowed even among things human. And this he
did not on his own authority, but because, being bom and
educated at Rome, he found them among the divine things.
Now as we briefly stated in the end of the first book what
we intended afterwards to discuss, and as we have disposed
of a part of this in the next two books, we see what our
readers will expect us now to take up.

2. Of those things which are contained in Books Second and Third .

We had promised, then, that we would say something
against those who attribute the calamities of the Roman re-
public to our religion, and that we would recount the evils,
as many and great as we could remember or might deem
sufficient, which that city, or the provinces belonging to its
empire, had suffered before their sacrifices were prohibited,
all of which would beyond doubt have been attributed to us,
if our religion had either already shone on them, or had thus
prohibited their sacrilegious rites. These things we have, as
we think, fully disposed of in the second and third books,
treating in the second of evils in morals, which alone or
chiefly are to be accounted evils ; and in the third, of those
which only fools dread to undergo — namely, those of the body

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or of outward things — which for the most part the good also
suffer. But those evils by which they themselves become
evil, they take, I do not say patiently, but with pleasure. And
how few evils have I related concerning that one city and its
empire ! Not even all down to the time of Caesar Augustus.
What if I had chosen to recount and enlarge on those evils,
not which men have inflicted on each other, such as the de-
vastations and destructions of war, but which happen in earthly
things, from the elements of the world itself ? Of such evils
Apuleius speaks briefly in one passage of that book which he
wrote, De Mundo , saying that all earthly things are subject to
change, overthrow, and destruction.1 For, to use his own
words, by excessive earthquakes the ground has burst asunder,
and cities with their inhabitants have been dean destroyed :
by sudden rains whole regions have been washed away ; those
also which formerly had been continents, have been insulated
by strange and new-come waves, and others, by the subsiding
of the sea, have been made passable by the foot of man : by
winds and storms cities have been overthrown; fires have
flashed forth from the clouds, by which regions in the East
being burnt up have perished ; and on the western coasts the
like destructions have been caused by the bursting forth of
waters and floods. So, formerly, from the lofty craters of Etna,
rivers of fire kindled by God have flowed like a torrent down
the steeps. If I had wished to collect from history wherever
I could, these and similar instances, where should I have
finished what happened even in those times before the name
of Christ had put down those of their idols, so vain and hurt-
ful to true salvation? I promised that I should also point
out which of their customs, and for what cause, the true God,
in whose power all kingdoms are, had deigned to favour to
the enlargement of their empire ; and how those whom they
think gods can have profited them nothing, but much rather
hurt them by deceiving and beguiling them ; so that it seems
to me I must now speak of these things, and chiefly of the
increase of the Roman empire. For I have already said not
a little, especially in the second book, about the many evils
introduced into their manners by the hurtful deceits of the
> Comp. Bacon’s Essay on the Vicissitudes of Things,

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demons whom they worshipped as gods. But throughout all
the three hooks already completed, where it appeared suitable,
we have set forth how much succour God, through the name
of Christ, to whom the barbarians beyond the custom of war
paid so much honour, has bestowed on the good and bad,
according as it is written, “ Who maketh His sun to rise on
the good and the evil, and giveth rain to the just and the
unjust”1

8. Whether Vie great extent of the empire, which has been acquired only by wars,
is to be reckoned among the good things either qf the wise or the happy.

Now, therefore, let us see how it is that they dare
to ascribe the very great extent and duration of the Roman
empire to those gods whom they contend that they worship
honourably, even by the obsequies of vile games and the
ministry of vile men : although I should like first to inquire
for a little what reason, what prudence, there is in wish-
ing to glory in the greatness and extent of the empire, when
you cannot point out the happiness of men who are always
rolling, with dark fear and cruel lust, in warlike slaughters
and in blood, which, whether shed in civil or foreign war, is
still human blood ; so that their joy may be compared to glass
in its fragile splendour, of which one is horribly afraid lest it
should be suddenly broken in pieces. That this may be more
easily discerned, let us not come to nought by being carried
away with empty boasting, or blunt the edge of our attention
.by loud-sounding names of things, when we hear of peoples,
/ kingdoms, provinces. But let us suppose a case of two men ;
( for each individual man, like one letter in a language, is as it
l were the element of a city or kingdom, however far-spreading
V in its occupation of the earth. Of these two men let us sup-
pose that one is poor, or rather of middling circumstances ; the
other very rich. But the rich man is anxious with fears,
pining with discontent, burning with covetousness, never
secure, always uneasy, panting from the perpetual strife of
his enemies, adding to his patrimony indeed by these miseries
to an immense degree, and by these additions also heaping
up most bitter cares. But that other man of moderate wealth
is contented with a small and compact estate, most dear to

1 Matt. y. 45.

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BOOK IV.] WAT THE HAPPINESS OF DOMINION IS. 139

his own family, enjoying the sweetest peace with his kindred
neighbours and Mends, in piety religious, benignant in mind,
healthy in body, in life frugal, in manners chaste, in conscience
secura I know not whether any one can be such a fool, that
he dare hesitate which to prefer. As, therefore, in the case of
these two men, so in two families, in two nations, in two king-
doms, this test of tranquillity holds good ; and if we apply
it vigilantly and without prejudice, we shall quite easily see
where the mere show of happiness dwells, and where real
felicity. Wherefore if the true God is worshipped, and if He
is served with genuine rites and true virtue, it is advantageous
that good men should long reign both far and wide. Nor is
this advantageous so much to themselves, as to those over
whom they reign. For, so far as concerns themselves, their
piety and probity, which are great gifts of God, suffice to give
them true felicity, enabling them to live well the life that
now is, and afterwards to receive that which is eternal In
this world, therefore, the dominion of good men is profitable, not
so much for themselves as for human affairs. But the dominion
of bad men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for
they destroy their own souls by greater licence in wickedness ;
while those who are put under them in service are not hurt
except by their own iniquity. For to the just all the evils
imposed on them by unjust rulers are not the punishment
of crime, but the test of virtue. Therefore the good man,
although he is a slave, is free ; but the bad man, even if he
reigns, is a slave, and that not of one man, but, what is far
more grievous, of as many masters as he has vices ; of which
vices when the divine Scripture treats, it says, * For of whom
any man is overcome, to the same he is also the bond-slave.”1

4. How like kingdoms without justice are to robberies .

Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but
great robberies ? For what are robberies themselves, but little
kingdoms ? The band itself is made up of men ; it is ruled
by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact
of the confederacy ; the booty is divided by the law agreed on.
If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases

1 2 Pet ii. 19.

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to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes pos-
session of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more
plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now
manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness,
but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt
and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a
pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked
the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the
sea, he answered with bold pride, "What thou meanest by
seizing the whole earth ; but because I do it with a petty
ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a
great fleet art styled emperor.” 1

6. Of the runaway gladiators whose power became like that of royal dignity.

I shall not therefore stay to inquire what sort of men
Romulus gathered together, seeing he deliberated much about
them, — how, being assumed out of that life they led into the
fellowship of his city, they might cease to think of the punish-
ment they deserved, the fear of which had driven them to
greater villanies ; so that henceforth they might be made more
peaceable members of society. But this I say, that the Roman
empire, which by subduing many nations had already grown
great and an object of universal dread, was itself greatly
alarmed, and only with much difficulty avoided a disastrous
overthrow, because a mere handful of gladiators in Campania,
escaping from the games, had recruited a great army, appointed
three generals, and most widely and cruelly devastated Italy.
Let them say what god aided these men, so that from a small
and contemptible band of robbers they attained to a kingdom,
feared even by the Romans, who had such great forces and
fortresses. Or will they deny that they were divinely aided
because they did not last long ? * As if, indeed, the life of
any man whatever lasted long. In that case, too, the gods
aid no one to reign, since all individuals quickly die ; nor is
sovereign power to be reckoned a benefit, because in a little
time in every man, and thus in all of them one by one, it
vanishes like a vapour. For what does it matter to those

1 Nonius MarcelL borrows this anecdote from Cicero, De Rcpub. in.

* It was extinguished by Crassus in its third year.

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who worshipped the gods under Romulus, and are long since
dead, that after their death the Roman empire has grown so
great, while they plead their causes before the powers beneath ?
Whether those causes are good or bad, it matters not to the
question before us. And this is to be understood of all those
who carry with them the heavy burden of their actions, haying
in the few days of their life swiftly and hurriedly passed over
the stage of the imperial office, although the office itself has
lasted through long spaces of time, being filled by a constant
succession of dying men. If, however, even those benefits
which last only for the shortest time are to be ascribed to the aid
of the gods, these gladiators were not a little aided, who broke
the bonds of their servile condition, fled, escaped, raised a
great and most powerful army, obedient to the will and orders
of their chiefs and much feared by the Roman majesty, and
remaining unsubdued by several Roman generals, seized many
places, and, having won very many victories, enjoyed what-
ever pleasures they wished, and did what their lust suggested,
and, until at last they were conquered, which was done with
the utmost difficulty, lived sublime and dominant But let
us come to greater matters.

6. Concerning the covetousness of Ninus , who teas the first who made war on hie
neighbours, that he might rule more widely .

Justinus, who wrote Greek or rather foreign history in
Latin, and briefly, like Trogus Pompeius whom he followed,
begins his work thus : “ In the beginning of the affairs of
peoples and nations the government was in the hands of kings,
who were raised to the height of this majesty not by courting
the people, but by the knowledge good men had of their modera-
tion. The people were held bound by no laws ; the decisions
of the princes were instead of laws. It was the custom to
guard rather than to extend the boundaries of the empire ; and
kingdoms were kept within the bounds of each ruler’s native
land. Ninus king of the Assyrians first of all, through new
lust of empire, changed the old and, as it were, ancestral
custom of nations. He first made war on his neighbours,
and wholly subdued as far as to the frontiers of Libya the
nations as yet untrained to resist.” And a little after he says :
"Ninus established by constant possession the greatness of the

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authority he had gained. Having mastered his nearest neigh-
bours, he went on to others, strengthened by the accession of
forces, and by making each fresh victory the instrument of
that which followed, subdued the nations of the whole East”
Now, with whatever fidelity to fact either he or Trogus may
in general have written — for that they sometimes told lies is
shown by other more trustworthy writers — yet it is agreed
among other authors, that the kingdom of the Assyrians was
extended far and wide by King Ninus. And it lasted so long,
that the Boman empire has not yet attained the same age ;
for, as those write who have treated of chronological history,
this kingdom endured for twelve hundred and forty years
from the first year in which Ninus began to reign, until it
was transferred to the Medes. But to make war on your
neighbours, and thence to proceed to others, and through mere
lust of dominion to crush and subdue people who do you no
harm, what else is this to be called than great robbery ?

7. Whether earthly kingdoms in their rise and fall have been either aided or
deserted by the help of the gods .

If this kingdom was so great and lasting without the aid of
the gods, why is the ample territory and long duration of the
Boman empire to be ascribed to the Boman gods ? For what-
ever is the cause in it, the same is in the other also. But if
they contend that the prosperity of the other also is to be
attributed to the aid of the gods, I ask of which ? For the
other nations whom Ninus overcame, did not then worship
other gods. Or if the Assyrians had gods of their own, who,
so to speak, were more skilful workmen in the construction
and preservation of the empire, whether are they dead, since
they themselves have also lost the empire ; or, having been
defrauded of their pay, or promised a greater, have they chosen
rather to go over to the Medes, and from them again to the
Persians, because Cyrus invited them, and promised them
something still more advantageous? This nation, indeed,
since the time of the kingdom of Alexander the Macedonian,
which was as brief in duration as it was great in extent, has
preserved its own empire, and at this day occupies no small
territories in the East If this is so, then either the gods are
unfaithful, who desert their own and go over to their enemies,

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which Camillus, who was but a man, did not do, when, being
victor and subduer of a most hostile state, although he had
felt that Borne, for whom he had done so much, was ungrate-
ful, yet afterwards, forgetting the injury and remembering his
native land, he freed her again from the Gauls ; or they are
not so strong as gods ought to be, since they can be overcome
by human skill or strength. Or if, when they carry on war
among themselves, the gods are not overcome by men, but
some gods who are peculiar to certain cities are perchance
overcome by other gods, it follows that they have quarrels
among themselves which they uphold, each for his own part
Therefore a city ought not to worship its own gods, but rather
others who aid their own worshippers. Finally, whatever
may have been the case as to this change of sides, or flight,
or migration, or failure in battle on the part of the gods, the
name of Christ had not yet been proclaimed in those parts
of the earth when these kingdoms were lost and transferred
through great destructions in war. For if, after more than
twelve hundred years, when the kingdom was taken away
from the Assyrians, the Christian religion had there already
preached another eternal kingdom, and put a stop to the
sacrilegious worship of false gods, what else would the foolish
men of that nation have said, but that the kingdom which
had been so long preserved, could be lost for no other cause
than the desertion of their own religions and the reception of
Christianity ? In which foolish speech that might have been
uttered, let those we speak of observe their own likeness, and
blush, if there is any sense of shame in them, because they
have uttered similar complaints ; although the Homan empire
is afflicted rather than changed, — a thing which has befallen
it in other times also, before the name of Christ was heard,
and it has been restored after such affliction, — a thing which
even in these times is not to be despaired o£ For who knows
the will of God concerning this matter ?

S. Which of the gods can the Romans suppose presided over the increase and
preservation of their empire, when they have believed that even the care
of single things could scarcely be committed to single gods ?

Next let us ask, if they please, out of so great a crowd of
gods which the fiomans worship, whom in especial, or what

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gods they believe to have extended and preserved that empira
Now, surely of this work, which is so excellent and so very
full of the highest dignity, they dare not ascribe any part to
the goddess Cloacina ;* or to Volupia, who has her appellation
from voluptuousness ; or to Libentina, who has her name from
lust; or to Yaticanus, who presides over the screaming of
infants; or to Cunina, who rules over their cradles. But
how is it possible to recount in one part of this book all the
names of gods or goddesses, which they could scarcely com-
prise in great volumes, distributing among these divinities
their peculiar offices about single things? They have not
even thought that the charge of their lands should be com-
mitted to any one god : but they have entrusted their farms
to Busina; the ridges of the mountains to Jugatinus; over
the downs they have set the goddess Collatina; over the
valleys, Vallonia. Nor could they even find one Segetia so
competent, that they could commend to her care all their com
crops at once ; but so long as their seed-com was still under
the ground, they would have the goddess Seia set over it;
then, whenever it was above ground and formed straw, they
set over it the goddess Segetia ; and when the grain was col-
lected and stored, they set over it the goddess Tutilina, that
it might be kept safe. Who would not have thought that
goddess Segetia sufficient to take care of the standing com
until it had passed from the first green blades to the dry ears ?
Yet she was not enough for men, who loved a multitude of
gods, that the miserable soul, despising the chaste embrace of
the one true God, should be prostituted to a crowd of demons.
Therefore they set Proserpina over the germinating seeds ; over
the joints and knots of the stems, the god Nodotus ; over the
sheaths enfolding the ears, the goddess Volutina; when the
sheaths opened that the spike might shoot forth, it was
ascribed to the goddess Patelana; when the stems stood all
equal with new ears, because the ancients described this

1 Cloacina, supposed by Lactantius (De falsa relig. i 20), Cyprian (De Idol .
vanit. ), and Augustine (infra, c. 23) to be the goddess of the “ cloaca,” or sewage
of Borne. Others, however, suppose it to be equivalent to Cluacina, a title given
to Venus, because the Romans after the end of the Sabine war purified them-
selves (cluere) in the vicinity of her statue.

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equalizing by the term hostire, it was ascribed to the goddess
Hostilina ; when the grain was in flower, it was dedicated to
the goddess Flora ; when full of milk, to the god Lactumus ;
when maturing, to the goddess Matuta ; when the crop was
runcated, — that is, removed from the soil, — to the goddess
Runcina. Nor do I yet recount them all, for I am sick of
all this, though it gives them no shame. Only, I have said
these very few things, in order that it may be understood
they dare by no means say that the Roman empire has been
established, increased, and preserved by their deities, who had
all their own functions assigned to them in such a way, that
no general oversight was entrusted to any one of them.
When, therefore, could Segetia take care of the empire, who
was not allowed to take care of the com and the trees?
When could Cunina take thought about war, whose oversight
was not allowed to go beyond the cradles of the babies?
When could Nodotus give help in battle, who had nothing to
do even with the sheath of the ear, but only with the knots of
the joints ? Every one sets a porter at the door of his house,
and because he is a man, he is quite sufficient; but these
people have set three gods, Forculus to the doors, Cardea to
the hinge, Limentinus to the threshold.1 Thus Forculus could
not at the same time take care also of the hinge and the
threshold.

9. Whether the great extent and long duration of the Roman empire should he
ascribed to Jove, whom his worshippers believe to be the chitf god.

Therefore omitting, or passing by for a little, that crowd of
petty gods, we ought to inquire into the part performed by
the great gods, whereby Rome has been made so great as to
reign so long over so many nations. Doubtless, therefore, this
is the work of Jove. For they will have it that he is
the king of all the gods and goddesses, as is shown by his
sceptre and by the Capitol on the lofty hill Concerning that
god they publish a saying which, although that of a poet, is
most apt, “ All things are full of Jove.”2 Varro believes that
this god is worshipped, although called by another name, even
by those who worship one God alone without any image. But

1 Forculum foribns, Cardeam cardiui, Limentinum limini.

* Virgil, Eclog . iii. 60.

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if this is so, why has he been so badly used at Borne (and
indeed by other nations too), that an image of him should be
made ? — a thing which was so displeasing to Varro himself,
that although he was overborne by the perverse custom of so
great a city, he had not the least hesitation in both saying
and writing, that those who have appointed images for the
people have both taken away fear and added error.

10. What opinions those have followed who have set divers gods over divers
parts of the world.

Why, also, is Juno united to him as his wife, who is called
at ©nee “ sister and yokefellow ?”* Because, say they, we have
Jove in the ether, Juno in the air ; and these two elements are
united, the one being superior, the other inferior. It is not
he, then, of whom it is said, “ All things are full of Jove,” if
Juno also fills some part. Does each fill either, and are both
of this couple in both of these elements, and in each of them
at the same time ? Why, then, is the ether given to Jove, the
air to Juno? Besides, these two should have been enough.
Why is it that the sea is assigned to Neptune, the earth to
Pluto ? And that these also might not be left without mates,
Salacia is joined to Neptune, Proserpine to Pluto. For they
say that, as Juno possesses the lower part of the heavens, — that
is, the air, — so Salacia possesses the lower part of the sea, and
Proserpine the lower part of the earth. They seek how they
may patch up these fables, but they find no way. For if
these things were so, their ancient sages would have main-
tained that there are three chief elements of the world, not
four, in order that each of the elements might have a pair of
gods. Now, they have positively affirmed that the ether is
one thing, the air another. But water, whether higher or
lower, is surely water. Suppose it ever so unlike, can it ever
be so much so as no longer to be water ? And the lower
earth, by whatever divinity it may be distinguished, what else
can it be than earth? Lo, then, since the whole physical
world is complete in these four or three elements, where shall
Minerva be ? What should she possess, what should she fill ?
For she is placed in the Capitol along with these two, although
she is not the offspring of their marriage. Or if they say that
1 Virgil, Jlneid, i. 47.

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she possesses the higher part of the ether, — and on that account
the poets have feigned that she sprang from the head of Jove, —
why then is she not rather reckoned queen of the gods, because
she is superior to Jove ? Is it because it would be improper
to set the daughter before the father ? Why, then, is not
that rule of justice observed concerning Jove himself toward
Saturn ? Is it because he was conquered ? Have they fought
then ? By no means, say they ; that is an old wife’s fable.
Lo, we are not to believe fables, and must hold more worthy
opinions concerning the gods ! Why, then, do they not assign
to the father of Jove a seat, if not of higher, at least of equal
honour ? Because Saturn, say they, is length of time.1 There-
fore they who worship Saturn worship Time ; and it is insinu-
ated that Jupiter, the king of the gods, was bom of Time. For
is anything unworthy said when Jupiter and Juno are said to
have been sprung from Time, if he is the heaven and she is
the earth, since both heaven and earth have been made, and
are therefore not eternal? For their learned and wise men
have this also in their books. Nor is that saying taken by
Virgil out of poetic figments, but out of the books of philo-
sophers,

“Then Ether, the Father Almighty, in copious showers descended
Into his spouse's glad bosom, making it fertile,”*

— that is, into the bosom of Tellus, or the earth. Although
here, also, they will have it that there are some differences,
and think that in the earth herself Terra is one thing, Tellus
another, and Tellumo another. And they have all these as
gods, called by their own names, distinguished by their own
offices, and venerated with their own altars and ritea This
same earth also they call the mother ot the gods, so that even
the fictions of the poets are more tolerable, if, according, not
to their poetical but sacred books, Juno is not only the sister
and wife, but also the mother of Jove. The same earth they
worship as Ceres, and also as Vesta; while yet they more
frequently affirm that Vesta is nothing else than fire, pertain-
ing to the hearths, without which the city cannot exist ; and
therefore virgins are wont to serve her, because as nothing is
bom of a virgin, so nothing is bom of fire; — but all this
1 Cicero, De Nat. Dear, ii 25. 2 Virgil, Georg, ii. 325, 326.

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nonsense ought to be completely abolished and extinguished by
Him who is bom of a virgin. For who can bear that, while
they ascribe to the fire so much honour, and, as it were,
chastity, they do not blush sometimes even to call Vesta
Venus, so that honoured virginity may vanish in her hand-
maidens? For it Vesta is Venus, how can virgins rightly
serve her by abstaining from venery ? Are there two Venuses,
the one a virgin, the other not a maid ? Or rather, are there
three, one the goddess of virgins, who is also called Vesta,
another the goddess of wives, and another of harlots ? To
her also the Phenicians offered a gift by prostituting their
daughters before they united them to husbands.1 Which of
these is the wife of Vulcan ? Certainly not the virgin, since
she has a husband. Far be it from us to say it is the harlot,
lest we should seem to wrong the son of Juno and fellow-
worker of Minerva. Therefore it is to be understood that
she belongs to the married people; but we would not wish
them to imitate her in what she did with Mars. "Again,”
say they, "you return to fables.” What sort of justice is
that, to be angry with us because we say such things of their
gods, and not to be angry with themselves, who in their
theatres most willingly behold the crimes of their gods?
And, — a thing incredible, if it were not thoroughly well
proved, — these very theatric representations of the crimes
of their gods have been instituted in honour of these same
goda

11. Concerning the many gods whom the pagan doctors defend as being
one and the same Jove,

Let them therefore assert as many things as ever they
please in physical reasonings and disputations. One while let
Jupiter be the soul ot this corporeal world, who fills and
moves that whole mass, constructed and compacted out of
four, or as many elements as they please ; another while, let
him yield to his sister and brothers their parts of it : now let
him be the ether, that from above he may embrace Juno, the
air spread out beneath ; again, let him be the whole heaven,
along with the air, and impregnate with fertilizing showers
and seeds the earth, as his wife, and, at the same time, his
1 Eusebius, De Prop . JEvang. i. 10.

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mother (for this is not vile in divine beings); and yet again
(that it may not be necessary to run through them all), let
him, the one god, of whom many think it has been said by
a most noble poet,

“ For God pervadeth all things.

All lands, and the tracts of the sea, and the depth of the heavens, ”l —

let it be him who in the ether is Jupiter; in the air, Juno;
in the sea, Neptune ; in the lower parts of the sea, Salacia ;
in the earth, Pluto ; in the lower part of the earth, Proserpine ;
on the domestic hearths, Vesta ; in the furnace of the workmen,
Vulcan ; among the stars, Sol, and Luna, and the Stars ; in
divination, Apollo ; in merchandise, Mercury ; in Janus, the
initiator ; in Terminus, the terminator ; Saturn, in time ; Mars
and Bellona, in war ; Liber, in vineyards ; Ceres, in corn-fields;
Diana, in forests ; Minerva, in learning. Finally, let it be him
who is in that crowd, as it were, of plebeian gods : let him
preside under the name of Liber over the seed of men, and
under that of Libera over that of women : let him be Dies-
piter, who brings forth the birth to the light of day : let him
be the goddess Mena, whom they set over the menstruation
of women : let him be Lucina, who is invoked by women in
childbirth : let him bring help to those who are being bom, by
taking them up from the bosom of the earth, and let him be
called Opis : let him open the mouth in the crying babe, and
be called the god Vaticanus : let him lift it from the earth,
and be called the goddess Levana ; let him watch over cradles,
and be called the goddess Cunina: let it be no other than
he who is in those goddesses, who sing the fates of the
new bom, and are called Carmentes: let him preside over
fortuitous events, and be called Fortuna: in the goddess
Rumina, let him milk out the breast to the little one, because
the ancients termed the breast ruma : in the goddess Potina,
let him administer drink : in the goddess Educa, let him supply
food : from the terror of infants, let him be styled Paventia :
from the hope which comes, Venilia; from voluptuousness,
Volupia ; from action, Agenor : from the stimulants by which
man is spurred on to much action, let him be named the god-
dess Stimula: let him be the goddess Strenia, for making

1 Virgil, Oeorg. iv. 221, 222.

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strenuous ; Numeria, who teaches to number ; Camcena, who
teaches to sing : let him be both the god Consus for granting
counsel, and the goddess Sentia for inspiring sentences : let
him be the goddess Juventas, who, after the robe of boyhood
is laid aside, takes charge of the beginning of the youthful
age : let him be Fortuna Barbata, who endues adults with a
beard, whom they have not chosen to honour ; so that this
divinity, whatever it may be, should at least be a male god,
named either Barbatus, from barla, like Nodotus, from nodus ;
or, certainly, not Fortuna, but because he has beards, For-
tunius : let him, in the god Jugatinus, yoke couples in mar-
riage ; and when the girdle of the virgin wife is loosed, let
him be invoked as the goddess Virginiensis : let him be
Mutunus or Tutemus, who, among the Greeks, is called
Priapus. If they are not ashamed of it, let all these which
I have named, and whatever others I have not named (for I
have not thought fit to name all), let all these gods and
goddesses be that one Jupiter, whether, as some will have it,
all these are parts of him, or are his powers, as those think
who are pleased to consider him the soul of the world, which
is the opinion of most of their doctors, and these the greatest
If these things are so (how evil they may be I do not yet
meanwhile inquire), what would they lose, if they, by a more
prudent abridgment, should worship one god ? For what part
of him could be contemned if he himself should be worshipped ?
But if they are afraid lest parts of him should be angry at
being passed by or neglected, then it is not the case, as they
will have it, that this whole is as the life of one living being,
which contains all the gods together, as if they were its vir-
tues, or members, or parts; but each part has its own life
separate from the rest, if it is so that one can be angered,
appeased, or stirred up more than another. But if it is said
that all together, — that is, the whole Jove himself, — would be
offended if his parts were not also worshipped singly and
minutely, it is foolishly spoken. Surely none of them could
be passed by if he who singly possesses them all should be
worshipped. For, to omit other things which are innumer-
able, when they say that all the stars are parts of Jove,
and are all alive, and have rational souls, and therefore

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without controversy are gods, can they not see how many they
do not worship, to how many they do not build temples or
set up altars, and to how very few, in fact, of the stars they
have thought of setting them up and offering sacrifice ? If,
therefore, those are displeased who are not severally wor-
shipped, do they not fear to live with only a few appeased,
while all heaven is displeased ? But if they worship all the
stars because they are part of Jove whom they worship, by
the same compendious method they could supplicate them all
in him alona For in this way no one would be displeased,
since in him alone all would be supplicated. No one would
be contemned, instead of there being just cause of displeasure
given to the much greater number who are passed by in the
worship offered to some; especially when Priapus, stretched
out in vile nakedness, is preferred to those who shine from
their supernal aboda

12. Concerning the opinion of those who have thought that Ood is the soul qf
the world , and the world is the body qf Ood,

Ought not men of intelligence, and indeed men of every
kind, to be stirred up to examine the nature of this opinion ?
For there is no need of excellent capacity for this task, that
putting away the desire of contention, they may observe that
if God is the soul of the world, and the world is as a body
to Him, who is the soul, He must be one living being con-
sisting of soul and body, and that this same God is a kind of
womb of nature containing all things in Himself, so that the
lives and souls of all living things are taken, according to the
manner of each one’s birth, out of His soul which vivifies that
whole mass, and therefore nothing at all remains which is not
a part of God. And if this is so, who cannot see what im-
pious and irreligious consequences follow, such as that what-
ever one may trample, he must trample a part of God, and in
slaying any living creature, a part of God must be slaughtered ?
But I am unwilling to utter all that may occur to those who
think of it, yet cannot be spoken without irreverence.

18. Concerning those who assert that only rational animals are parts of
the one Ood.

But if they contend that only rational animala, such as
men, are parts of God, I do not really see how, if the whole

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world is God, they can separate beasts from being parts of Him.
But what need is there of striving about that ? Concerning the
rational animal himself, — that is, man, — what more unhappy
belief can be entertained than that a part of God is whipped
when a boy is whipped ? And who, unless he is quite mad,
could bear the thought that parts of God can become lascivious,
iniquitous, impious, and altogether damnable ? In brief, why
is God angry at those who do not worship Him, since these
offenders are parts of Himself? It remains, therefore, that
they must say that all the gods have their own lives ; that
each one lives for himself, and none of them is a part of any
one ; but that all are to be worshipped, — at least as many as
can be known and worshipped; for they are so many it is
impossible that all can be so. And of all these, I believe
that Jupiter, because he presides as king, is thought by them
to have both established and extended the Roman empire.
For if he has not done it, what other god do they believe
could have attempted so great a work, when they must all
be occupied with their own offices and works, nor can one
intrude on that of another ? Could the kingdom of men then
be propagated and increased by the king of the gods ?

14. The enlargement of kingdoms is unsuitably ascribed to Jove ; for if as they

will have it, Victoria is a goddess, she atone would suffice for this business.

Here, first of all, I ask, why even the kingdom itself is not
some god ? For why should not it also be so, if Victory is
a goddess ? Or what need is there of Jove himself in this
affair, if Victory favours and is propitious, and always goes to
those whom she wishes to be victorious ? With this goddess
favourable and propitious, even if Jove was idle and did
nothing, what nations could remain unsubdued, what king-
dom would not yield ? But perhaps it is displeasing to good
men to fight with most wicked unrighteousness, and provoke
with voluntary war neighbours who are peaceable and do no
wrong, in order to enlarge a kingdom ? If they feel thus, I
entirely approve and praise them.

15. Whether it is suitable for good men to wish to rule more widely.

Let them ask, then, whether it is quite fitting for good
men to rejoice in extended empire. For the iniquity of

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those with whom just wars are carried on favours the growth
of a kingdom, which would certainly have been small if the
peace and justice of neighbours had not by any wrong pro-
voked the carrying on of war against them ; and human affairs
being thus more happy, all kingdoms would have been small,
rejoicing in neighbourly concord ; and thus there would have
been very many kingdoms of nations in the world, as there
are very many houses of citizens in a city. Therefore, to
carry on war and extend a kingdom over wholly subdued
nations seems to bad men to be felicity, to good men neces-
sity. But because it would be worse that the injurious should
rule over those who are more righteous, therefore even that is
not unsuitably called felicity. But beyond doubt it is greater
felicity to have a good neighbour at peace, than to conquer a
bad one by making war. Your wishes are bad, when you
desire that one whom you hate or fear should be in such a
condition that you can conquer him. If, therefore, by carry-
ing on wars that were just, not impious or unrighteous, the
Homans could have acquired so great an empire, ought they not
to worship as a goddess even the injustice of foreigners ? For
we see that this has co-operated much in extending the empire,
by making foreigners so unjust that they became people with
whom just wars might be carried on, and the empire increased.
And why may not injustice, at least that of foreign nations,
also be a goddess, if Fear and Dread, and Ague have deserved
to be Eoman gods? By these two, therefore, — that is, by
foreign injustice, and the goddess Victoria, for injustice stirs
up causes of wars, and Victoria brings these same wars to a
happy termination, — the empire has increased, even although
Jove has been idle. For what part could Jove have here,
when those things which might be thought to be his benefits
are held to be gods, called gods, worshipped as gods, and are
themselves invoked for their own parts ? He also might have
some part here, if he himself might be called Empire, just as
she is called Victory. Or if empire is the gift of Jove, why
may not victory also be held to be his gift ? And it certainly
would have been held to be so, had he been recognised and
worshipped, not as a stone in the Capitol, but as the true
King of kings and Lord of lords.

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16. What 1 008 the reason why the Romans, in detailing separate gods for att
things and all movements of the mind, chose to have the temple of Quiet
outside the gates .

But I wonder very much, that while they assigned to separate
gods single things, and (well nigh) all movements of the mind ;
that while they invoked the goddess Agenoria, who should
excite to action ; the goddess Stimula, who should stimulate
to unusual action ; the goddess Murcia, who should not move
men beyond measure, but make them, as Pomponius says,
murcid — that is, too slothful and inactive; the goddess
Strenua, who should make them strenuous; and that while
they offered to all these gods and goddesses solemn and public
worship, they should yet have been unwilling to give public
acknowledgment to her whom they name Quies because she
makes men quiet, but built her temple outside the Colline
gate. Whether was this a symptom of an unquiet mind, or
rather was it thus intimated that he who should persevere in
worshipping that crowd, not, to be sure, of gods, but of demons,
could not dwell with quiet ; to which the true Physician calls,
saying, “ Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and
ye shall find rest unto your souls ? ”

17. Whether , if the highest power belongs to Jove, Victoria also ought to be
worshipped .

Or do they say, perhaps, that Jupiter sends the goddess
Victoria, and that she, as it were, acting in obedience to the
king of the gods, comes to those to whom he may have de-
spatched her, and takes up her quarters on their side ? This
is truly said, not of Jove, whom they, according to their own
imagination, feign to be king of the gods, but of Him who is
the true eternal King, because he sends, not Victory, who is
no person, but His angel, and causes whom He pleases to con-
quer ; whose counsel may be hidden, but cannot be unjust
For if Victory is a goddess, why is not Triumph also a god,
and joined to Victory either as husband, or brother, or son ?
Indeed, they have imagined such things concerning the gods,
that if the poets had feigned the like, and they should have
been discussed by us, they would have replied that they were
laughable figments of the poets not to be attributed to true
deities. And yet they themselves did not laugh when they

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were, not reading in the poets, but worshipping in the temples
such doating follies. Therefore they should entreat Jove
alone for all things, and supplicate him only. For if Victory
is a goddess, and is under him as her king, wherever he might
have sent her, she could not dare to resist and do her own
will rather than his.

18. With what reason they who t/unh Felicity and Fortune goddesses have
distinguished them .

What shall we say, besides, of the idea that Felicity also is
a goddess ? She has leceived a temple ; she has merited an
altar ; suitable rites of worship are paid to her. She alone,
then, should be worshipped. For where she is present, what
good thing can be absent ? But what does a man wish, that
he thinks Fortune also a goddess and worships her ? Is felicity
one thing, fortune another? Fortune, indeed, may be bad
as well as good ; but felicity, if it could be bad, would not be
ielicity. Ceitainly we ought to think all the gods of either
sex (if they also have sex) are only good. This says Plato ;
this say other philosophers; this say all estimable rulers
of the republic and the nations. How is it, then, that the
goddess Fortune is sometimes good, sometimes bad? Is it
perhaps the case that when she is bad she is not a goddess,
but is suddenly changed into a malignant demon? How
many Fortunes are there then ? Just as many as there are
men who are fortunate, that is, of good fortune. But since
there must also be very many others who at the very same
time are men of bad fortune, could she,, being one and the
same Fortune, be at the same time both bad and good — the
one to these, the other to those ? She who is the goddess, is
she always good ? Then she herself is felicity. Why, then,
are two names given her? Yet this is tolerable; for it is
customary that one thing should be called by two names.
But why different temples, different altars, different rituals ?
There is a reason, say they, because Felicity is she whom the
good have by previous merit; but fortune, which is termed
good without any trial of merit, befalls both good and bad
men fortuitously, whence also she is named Fortune. How,
therefore, is she good, who without any discernment comes
both to the good and to the bad ? Why is she worshipped,

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who is thus blind, limning at random on any one whatever,
so that for the most part she passes by her worshippers, and
cleaves to those who despise her? Or if her worshippers
profit somewhat, so that they axe seen by her and loved, then
she follows merit, and does not come fortuitously. What,
then, becomes of that definition of fortune ? What becomes
of the opinion that she has received her very name from for-
tuitous events ? For it profits one nothing to worship her if
she is truly fortune. But if she distinguishes her worshippers,
so that she may benefit them, she is not fortune. Or does
Jupiter send her too, whither he pleases ? Then let him alone
be worshipped; because Fortune is not able to resist him
when he commands her, and sends her where he pleases. Or,
at least, let the bad worship her, who do not choose to have
merit by which the goddess Felicity might be invited.

19. Concerning Fortuna Muliebris}

To this supposed deity, whom they call Fortuna, they
ascribe so much, indeed, that they have a tradition that the
image of her, which was dedicated by the Roman matrons, and
called Fortuna Muliebris, has spoken, and has said, once and
again, that the matrons pleased her by their homage ; which,
indeed, if it is true, ought not to excite our wonder. For it
is not so difficult for malignant demons to deceive, and they
ought the rather to advert to their wits and wiles, because it
is that goddess who comes by haphazard who has spoken,
and not she who comes to reward merit For Fortuna was
loquacious, and Felicitas mute; and for what other reason
but that men might not care to live rightly, having made
Fortuna their friend, who could make them fortunate without
any good desert ? And truly, if Fortuna speaks, she should at
least speak, not with a womanly, but with a manly voice ; lest
they themselves who have dedicated the image should think
so great a miracle has been wrought by feminine loquacity.

20. Concerning Virtue and Faith, which the pagans have honoured with temples
and sacred rites, passing by other good qualities, which ought likewise to
have been worshipped, if deity was rightly attributed to these .

They have made Virtue also a goddess, which, indeed, if it

1 The feminine Fortune.

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could be a goddess, had been preferable to many. And now,
because it is not a goddess, but a gift of God, let it be obtained
by prayer from Him, by whom alone it can be given, and the
whole crowd of false gods vanishes. But why is Faith believed
to be a goddess, and why does she herself receive temple and
altar? For whoever prudently acknowledges her makes his
own self an abode for her. But how do they know what
faith is, of which it is the prime and greatest function that
the true God may be believed in ? But why had not virtue
sufficed ? Does it not include faith also ? Forasmuch as
they have thought proper to distribute virtue into four divi-
sions— prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance — and as
each of these divisions has its own virtues, faith is among the
parts of jqstice, and has the chief place with as many of us as
know what that saying means, “ The just shall live by faith.”1
But if Faith is a goddess, I wonder why these keen lovers of a
multitude of gods have wronged so many other goddesses, by
passing them by, when they could have dedicated temples and
altars to them likewisa Why has temperance not deserved
to be a goddess, when some Boman princes have obtained no
small glory on account of her ? Why, in fine, is fortitude not
a goddess, who aided Mucius when he thrust his right hand
into the flames ; who aided Curtius, when for the sake of his
country he threw himself headlong into the yawning earth ;
who aided Decius the sire, and Decius the son, when they
devoted themselves for the army ? — though we might ques-
tion whether these men had true fortitude, if this concerned
our present discussion. Why have prudence and wisdom
merited no place among the gods ? Is it because they are
all worshipped under the general name of Virtue itself?
Then they could thus worship the true God also, of whom
all the other gods are thought to be parts. But in that one
name of virtue is comprehended both faith and chastity, which
yet have obtained separate altars in temples of their own.

21. That although not understanding them to he the gifts of God, they ought at
least to have been content with Virtue and Felicity .

These, not verity but vanity has made goddesses. For
these are gifts of the true God, not themselves goddesses.

1 Hab. ii 4.

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However, where virtue and felicity are, what else is sought
for ? What can suffice the man whom virtue and felicity do
not suffice? For surely virtue comprehends all things we
need do, felicity all things we need wish for. If Jupiter,
then, was worshipped in order that he might give these two
things, — because, if extent and duration of empire is something
good, it pertains to this same felicity, — why is it not under-
stood that they are not goddesses, but the gifts of God ? But
if they are judged to be goddesses, then at least that other
great crowd of gods should not be sought after. For, having
considered all the offices which their fancy has distributed
among the various gods and goddesses, let them find out, if
they can, anything which could be bestowed by any god what-
ever on a man possessing virtue, possessing felicity. What
instruction could be sought either from Mercury or Minerva,
when Virtue already possessed all in herself ? Virtue, indeed,
is defined by the ancients as itself the art of living well and
rightly. Hence, because virtue is called in Greek apertf, it
has been thought the Latins have derived from it the term
art. But if Virtue cannot come except to the clever, what
need was there of the god Father Catius, who should make
men cautious, that is, acute, when Felicity could confer this ?
Because, to be bom clever belongs to felicity. Whence,
although goddess Felicity could not be worshipped by one
not yet bom, in order that, being made his friend, she might
bestow this on him, yet she might confer this favour on
parents who were her worshippers, that clever children should
be bom to them. What need had women in childbirth to
invoke Lucina, when, if Felicity should be present, they
would have, not only a good delivery, but good children too ?
What need was there to commend the children to the goddess
Ops when they were being bom; to the god Vaticanus in
their birth-cry ; to the goddess Cunina when lying cradled ;
to the goddess Rumina when sucking ; to the god Statilinus
when standing; to the goddess Adeona when coming; to
Abeona when going away; to the goddess Mens that they
might have a good mind; to the god Volumnus, and the
goddess Volumna, that they might wish for good things ; to
the nuptial gods, that they might make good matches ; to the

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rural gods, and chiefly to the goddess Fructesca herself, that
they might receive the most abundant fruits ; to Mars and
Bellona, that they might carry on war well ; to the goddess
Victoria, that they might be victorious; to the god Honor,
that they might be honoured; to the goddess Pecunia, that
they might have plenty money ; to the god Aesculanus, and
his son Argentinus, that they might have brass and silver
coin ? For they set down Aesculanus as the father of Argen-
tinus for this reason, that brass coin began to be used before
silver. But I wonder Argentinus has not begotten Aurinus,
since gold coin also has followed. Could they have him for a
god, they would prefer Aurinus both to his father Argentinus
and his grandfather Aesculanus, just as they set Jove before
Saturn. Therefore, what necessity was there on account of
these gifts, either of soul, or body, or outward estate, to worship
and invoke so great a crowd of gods, all of whom 1 have not
mentioned, nor have they themselves been able to provide for
all human benefits, minutely and singly methodized, minute
and single gods, when the one goddess Felicity was able,
with the greatest ease, compendiously to bestow the whole
of them ? nor should any other be sought after, either for the
bestowing of good things, or for the averting of eviL For
why should they invoke the goddess Fessonia for the weary ;
for driving away enemies, the goddess Pellonia ; for the sick,
as a physician, either Apollo or ALsculapius, or both together
if there should be great danger? Neither should the god
Spiniensis be entreated that he might root out the thorns
from the fields; nor the goddess Rubigo that the mildew
might not come, — Felicitas alone being present and guarding,
either no evils would have arisen, or they would have been
quite easily driven away. Finally, since we treat of these
two goddesses, Virtue and Felicity, if felicity is the reward of
virtue, she is not a goddess, but a gift of God. But if she is
a goddess, why may she not be said to confer virtue itself,
inasmuch as it is a great felicity to attain virtue ?

22. Concerning the knowledge of the worship due to the gods , which Varro
glories in having himself coif erred on the Romans.

What is it, then, that Varro boasts he has bestowed as a
very great benefit on his fellow-citizens, because he not only

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recounts the gods who ought to be worshipped by the Romans,
but also tells what pertains to each of them ? “ Just as it is

of no advantage,” he says, “ to know the name and appearance
of any man who is a physician, and not know that he is a
physician, so,” he says, “ it is of no advantage to know well
that JEsculapius is a god, if you are not aware that he can
bestow the gift of health, and consequently do not know why
you ought to supplicate him.” He also affirms this by another
comparison, saying, “ No one is able, not only to live well, but
even to live at all, if he does not know who is a smith, who a
baker, who a weaver, from whom he can seek any utensil,
whom he may take for a helper, whom for a leader, whom for a
teacher ;” asserting, “ that in this way it can be doubtful to no
one, that thus the knowledge of the gods is useful, if one can
know what force, and faculty, or power any god may have in
anything. For from this we may be able,” he says, “ to know
what god we ought to call to, and invoke for any cause ; lest
we should do as too many are wont to do, and desire water
from Liber, and wine from Lymphs.” Very useful, forsooth !
Who would not give this man thanks if he could show true
things, and if he could teach that the one true God, from whom
all good things are, is to be worshipped by men ?

23. Concerning Felicity, whom the Romans, who venerate many gods, for a long
time did not worship with divine honour , though she atone would have
sufficed instead of all.

But how does it happen, if their books and rituals are true*
and Felicity is a goddess, that she herself is not appointed as
the only one to be worshipped, since she could confer all
things, and all at once make men happy ? For who wishes
anything for any other reason than that he may become
happy ? Why was it left to Lucullus to dedicate a temple
to so great a goddess at so late a date, and after so many
Roman rulers ? Why did Romulus himself, ambitious as he
was of founding a fortunate city, not erect a temple to this
goddess before all others ? Why did he supplicate the other
gods for anything, since he would have lacked nothing had she
been with him ? For even he himself would neither have
been first a king, then afterwards, as they think, a god, if this
goddess had not been propitious to him. Why, therefore, did

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he appoint as gods for the Romans, Janus, Jove, Mars, Picus,
Faunus, Tiberinns, Hercules, and others, if there were more of
them ? Why did Titus Tatius add Saturn, Ops, Sun, Moon,
Vulcan, Light, and whatever others he added, among whom
was even the goddess Cloacina, while Felicity was neglected ?
Why did Numa appoint so many gods and so many goddesses
without this one ? Was it perhaps because he could not see
her among so great a crowd ? Certainly king Hostilius would
not have introduced the new gods Fear and Dread to be propiti-
ated, if he could have known or might have worshipped this
goddess. For, in presence of Felicity, Fear and Dread would
have disappeared, — I do not say propitiated, but put to flight
Next, I ask, how is it that the Roman empire had already
immensely increased before any one worshipped Felicity ? Was
the empire, therefore, more great than happy ? For how could
true felicity be there, where there was not true piety ? For
piety is the genuine worship of the true God, and not the wor-
ship of as many demons as there are false gods. Yet even
afterwards, when Felicity had already been taken into the
number of the gods, the great infelicity of the civil wars
ensued. Was Felicity perhaps justly indignant, both because
she was invited so late, and was invited not to honour, but
rather to reproach, because along with her were worshipped
Priapus, and Cloacina, and Fear and Dread, and Ague, and
others which were not gods to be worshipped, but the crimes
of the worshippers ? Last of all, if it seemed good to worship
so great a goddess along with a most unworthy crowd, why at
least was she not worshipped in a more honourable way than
the rest ? For is it not intolerable that Felicity is placed
neither among the gods Consentes,1 whom they allege to be
admitted into the council of Jupiter, nor among the gods whom
they term Select ? Some temple might be made for her which
might be pre-eminent, both in loftiness of site and dignity of
style. Why, indeed, not something better than is made for
Jupiter himself ? For who gave the kingdom even to Jupiter
but Felicity ? I am supposing that when he reigned he was
happy. Felicity, however, is certainly more valuable than a

1 So caUed from the consent or harmony of the celestial movements of these
gods.

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kingdom. For no one doubts that a man might easily be
found who may fear to be made a king ; but no one is found
who is unwilling to be happy. Therefore, if it is thought they
can be consulted by augury, or in any other way, the gods them-
selves should be consulted about this thing, whether they may
wish to give place to Felicity. If, perchance, the place should
already be occupied by the temples and altars of others, where
a greater and more lofty temple might be built to Felicity,
even Jupiter himself might give way, so that Felicity might
rather obtain the very pinnacle of the Capitoline hill For
there is not any one who would resist Felicity, except, which
is impossible, one who might wish to be unhappy. Certainly,
if he should be consulted, Jupiter would in no case do what
those three gods, Mars, Terminus, and Juventas, did, who posi-
tively refused to give place to their superior and king. For,
as their books record, when king Tarquin wished to construct
the Capitol, and perceived that the place which seemed to him
to be the most worthy and suitable was preoccupied by other
gods, not daring to do anything contrary to their pleasure, and
believing that they would willingly give place to a god who
was so great, and was their own master, because there were
many of them there when the Capitol was founded, he inquired
by augury whether they chose to give place to Jupiter, and
they were all willing to remove thence except those whom I
have named. Mars, Terminus, and Juventas ; and therefore the
Capitol was built in such a way that these three also might be
within it, yet with such obscure signs that even the most learned
men could scarcely know this. Surely, then, Jupiter himself
would by no means despise Felicity as he was himself despised
by Terminus, Mars, and Juventas. But even they themselves
who had not given place to Jupiter, would certainly give place
to Felicity, who had made Jupiter king over them. Or if they
should not give place, they would act thus not out of contempt
of her, but because they chose rather to be obscure in the house
of Felicity, than to be eminent without her in their own places.

Thus the goddess Felicity being established in the largest
and loftiest place, the citizens should learn whence the further-
ance of every good desire should be sought. And so, by the
persuasion of nature herself, the superfluous multitude of other

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gods being abandoned. Felicity alone would be worshipped,
prayer would be made to her alone, her temple alone would
be frequented by the citizens who wished to be happy, which
no one of them would not wish ; and thus felicity, who was
sought for from all the gods, would be sought for only from
her own self. For who wishes to receive from any god any-
thing else than felicity, or what he supposes to tend to felicity?
Wherefore, if Felicity has it in her power to be with what
man she pleases (and she has it if she is a goddess), what folly
is it, after all, to seek from any other god her whom you can
obtain by request from her own self ! Therefore they ought to
honour this goddess above other gods, even by dignity of place.
For, as we read in their own authors, the ancient Romans paid
greater honours to I know not what Summanus, to whom they
attributed nocturnal thunderbolts, than to Jupiter, to whom
diurnal thunderbolts were held to pertain. But, after a famous
and conspicuous temple had been built to Jupiter, owing to
the dignity of the building, the multitude resorted to him in
so great numbers, that scarce one can be found who remembers
even to have read the name of Summanus, which now he cannot
once hear named. But if Felicity is not a goddess, because, as
is true, it is a gift of God, that god must be sought who has
power to give it, and that hurtful multitude of false gods must
be abandoned which the vain multitude of foolish men follows
after, making gods to itself of the gifts of God, and offending
Himself whose gifts they are by the stubbornness of a proud
will For he cannot be free from infelicity who worships
Felicity as a goddess, and forsakes God, the giver of felicity ;
just as he cannot be free from hunger who licks a painted loaf
of bread, and does not buy it of the man who has a real one.

24. The reasons by which the pagans attempt to defend their worshipping
among the gods the divine gifts themselves .

We may, however, consider their reasons. Is it to be
believed, say they, that our forefathers were besotted even to
such a degree as not to know that these things are divine
gifts, and not gods ? But as they knew that such things are
granted to no one, except by some god freely bestowing them,
they called the gods whose names they did not find out by the
names of those things which they deemed to be given by them ;

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sometimes slightly altering the name for that purpose, as, for
example, from war they have named Bellona, not bdlum ; from
cradles, Cunina, not ounce; from standing com, Segetia, not seges;
from apples, Pomona, not pomum ; from oxen, Bubona, not bos.
Sometimes, again, with no alteration of the word, just as the
things themselves are named, so that the goddess who gives
money is called Pecunia, and money is not thought to be itself
a goddess : so of Virtus, who gives virtue ; Honor, who gives
honour; Concordia, who gives concord; Victoria, who gives
victory. So, they say, when Felicitas is called a goddess, what
is meant is not the thing itself which is given, but that deity
by whom felicity is given.

25. Concerning the one God only to be worshipped, who, although His name is
unknown, is yet deemed to be the giver o/feUcUy.

Having had that reason rendered to us, we shall perhaps
much more easily persuade, as we wish, those whose heart has
not become too much hardened. For if now human infirmity
has perceived that felicity cannot be given except by some
god ; if this was perceived by those who worshipped so many
gods, at whose head they set Jupiter himself ; if, in their
ignorance of the name of Him by whom felicity was given,
they agreed to call Him by the name of that very thing which
they believed He gave; — then it follows that they thought
that felicity could not be given even by Jupiter himself, whom
they already worshipped, but certainly by him whom they
thought fit to worship under the name of Felicity itself. I
thoroughly affirm the statement that they believed felicity to
be given by a certain God whom they knew not: let Him
therefore be sought after, let Him be worshipped, and it is
enough. Let the train of innumerable demons be repudiated,
and let this God suffice every man whom his gift suffices. For
him, I say, God the giver of felicity will not be enough to
worship, for whom felicity itself is not enough to receiva
But let him for whom it suffices (and man has nothing more
he ought to wish for) serve the one God, the giver of felicity.
Xhis God is not he whom they call Jupiter. For if they
acknowledged him to be the giver of felicity, they would not
seek, under the name of Felicity itself, for another god or goddess
by whom felicity might be given ; nor could they tolerate that

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Jupiter himself should be worshipped with such infamous attri-
butes. For he is said to be the debaucher of the wives of others ;
he is the shameless lover and ravisher of a beautiful boy.

26. Of the scenic plays, the celebration of which the gods have exacted from
their worshippers .

"But,” says Cicero, "Homer invented these things, and
transferred things human to the gods : I would rather transfer
things divine to us.”1 The poet, by ascribing such crimes to
the gods, has justly displeased the grave man. Why, then, are
the scenic plays, where these crimes are habitually spoken of,
acted, exhibited, in honour of the gods, reckoned among things
divine by the most learned men ? Cicero should exclaim, not
against the inventions of the poets, but against the customs of
the ancients. Would not they have exclaimed in reply, What
have we done ? The gods themselves have loudly demanded
that these plays should be exhibited in their honour, have
fiercely exacted them, have menaced destruction unless this
was performed, have avenged its neglect with great severity,
and have manifested pleasure at the reparation of such neglect.
Among their virtuous and wonderful deeds the following is
related. It was announced in a dream to Titus Latinius, a
Roman rustic, that he should go to the senate and tell them
to recommence the games of Rome, because on the first day
of their celebration a condemned criminal had been led to
punishment in sight of the people, an incident so sad as to
disturb the gods who were seeking amusement from the
games. And when the peasant who had received this inti-
mation was afraid on the following day to deliver it to the
senate, it was renewed next night in a severer form: he
lost his son, because of his neglect. On the third night
he was warned that a yet graver punishment was impend-
ing, if he should still refuse obedience. When even thus
he did not dare to obey, he fell into a virulent and horrible
disease. But then, on the advice of his friends, he gave
information to the magistrates, and was carried in a litter
into the senate, and having, on declaring his dream, immedi-
ately recovered strength, went away on his own feet whole.*
The senate, amazed at so great a miracle, decreed that the

1 Tusc. Quosst. i. 26. * Livy, ii. 36 ; Cicero, De Divin . 26.

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games should be renewed at fourfold cost What sensible
man does not see that men, being put upon by malignant
demons, from whose domination nothing save the grace of
God through Jesus Christ our Lord sets free, have been com-
pelled by force to exhibit to such gods as these, plays which,
if well advised, they should condemn as shameful ? Certain it
is that in these plays the poetic crimes of the gods are cele-
brated, yet they are plays which were re-established by decree
of the senate, under compulsion of the gods. In these plays
the most shameless actors celebrated Jupiter as the corrupter
of chastity, and thus gave him pleasure. If that was a fiction,
he would have been moved to anger ; but if he was delighted
with the representation of his crimes, even although fabulous,
then, when he happened to be worshipped, who but the devil
could be served ? Is it so that he could found, extend, and
preserve the Roman empire, who was more vile than any
Roman man whatever, to whom such things were displeasing ?
Could he give felicity who was so infelicitously worshipped,
and who, unless he should be thus worshipped, was yet more
infelicitously provoked to anger ?

27. Concerning the three hinds of gods about which the pontiff Sccevola has

discoursed.

It is recorded that the very learned pontiff Scsevola1 had
distinguished about three kinds of gods— one introduced by
the poets, another by the philosophers, another by the states-
men. The first kind he declares to be trifling, because many
unworthy things have been invented by the poets concerning
the gods ; the second does not suit states, because it contains
some things that are superfluous, and some, too, which it would
be prejudicial for the people to know. It is no great matter
about the superfluous things, for it is a common saying of
skilful lawyers, * Superfluous things do no harm.”1 But what
are those things which do harm when brought before the
multitude? “These,” he says, “that Hercules, JSsculapius,
Castor and Pollux, are not gods ; for it is declared by learned
men that these were but men, and yielded to the common

1 Called by Cicero (De Orators, i. 39) the most eloquent of lawyers, and the
best skilled lawyer among eloquent men.

* Superfine non nocent

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lot of mortals” What else? "That states have not the
true images of the gods; because the true God has neither
sex, nor age, nor definite corporeal members.” The pontiff is
not willing that the people should know these things ; for he
does not think they are false. He thinks it expedient, there-
fore, that states should be deceived in matters of religion;
which Varro himself does not hesitate even to say in his
books about things divina Excellent religion ! to which the
weak, who requires to be delivered, may flee for succour ; and
when he seeks for the truth by which he may be delivered, it
is believed to be expedient for him that he be deceived. And,
truly, in these same books, Scsevola is not silent as to his
reason for rejecting the poetic sort of gods, — to wit, "because
they so disfigure the gods that they could not bear compari-
son even with good men, when they make one to commit
theft, another adultery ; or, again, to say or do something else
basely and foolishly ; as that three goddesses contested (with
each other) the prize of beauty, and the two vanquished by
Venus destroyed Troy; that Jupiter turned himself into a
bull or swan that he might copulate with some one ; that a
goddess married a man, and Saturn devoured his children;
that, in fine, there is nothing that could be imagined, either
of the miraculous or vicious, which may not be found there,
and yet is far removed from the nature of the gods.” 0 chief
pontiff Scaevola, take away the plays if thou art able ; instruct
the people that they may not offer such honours to the im-
mortal gods, in which, if they like, they may admire the crimes
of the gods, and, so far as it is possible, may, if they please,
imitate them. But if the people shall have answered thee.
You, 0 pontiff, have brought these things in among us, then
ask the gods themselves at whose instigation you have ordered
these things, that they may not order such things to be offered
to them. For if they are bad, and therefore in no way to be
believed concerning the majority of the gods, the greater is the
wrong done the gods about whom they are feigned with im-
punity. But they do not hear thee, they are demons, they
teach wicked things, they rejoice in vile things ; not only do
they not count it a wrong if these things are feigned about
them, but it is a wrong they are quite unable to bear if they

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are not acted at their stated festivals. But now, if thou
wonldst call on Jupiter against them, chiefly for that reason
that more of his crimes are wont to be acted in the scenic
plays, is it not the case that, although you call him god
Jupiter, by whom this whole world is ruled and administered,
it is he to whom the greatest wrong is done by you, because
you have thought he ought to be worshipped along with them,
and have styled him their king ?

28. Whether the worship of the gods has been of service to the Romans in

obtaining and extending the empire.

Therefore such gods, who are propitiated by such honours,
or rather are impeached by them (for it is a greater crime to
delight in having such things said of them falsely, than even
if they could be said truly), could never by any means have
been able to increase and preserve the Roman empire. For
if they could have done it, they would rather have bestowed
so grand a gift on the Greeks, who, in this kind of divine
things, — that is, in scenic plays, — have worshipped them more
honourably and worthily, although they have not exempted
themselves from those slanders of the poets, by whom they
saw the gods torn in pieces, giving them licence to ill-use
any man they pleased, and have not deemed the scenic
players themselves to be base, but have held them worthy
even of distinguished honour. But just as the Romans were
able to have gold money, although they did not worship a
god Aurinus, so also they could have silver and brass coin,
and yet worship neither Argentinus nor his father jEsculanus ;
and so of all the rest, which it would be irksome for me to
detail. It follows, therefore, both that they could not by any
means attain such dominion if the true God was unwilling;
and that if these gods, false and many, were unknown or con-
temned, and He alone was known and worshipped with sincere
faith and virtue, they would both have a better kingdom here,
whatever might be its extent, and whether they might have
one here or not, would afterwards receive an eternal kingdom.

29. Of the falsity of the augury by which the strength and stability oj the

• Roman empire was considered to be indicated.

For what kind of augury is that which they have declared
to be most beautiful, and to which I referred a little ago, that

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Mars, and Terminus, and Juventas would not give place even
to Jove the king of the gods ? For thus, they say, it was
signified that the nation dedicated to Mars, — that is, the Roman,
— should yield to none the place it once occupied ; likewise,
that on account of the god Terminus, no one would be able to
disturb the Roman frontiers ; and also, that the Roman youth,
because of the goddess Juventas, should yield to no one. Let
them see, therefore, how they can hold him to be the king
of their gods, and the giver of their own kingdom, if these
auguries set him down for an adversary, to whom it would
have been honourable not to yield. However, if these things
are true, they need not be at all afraid. For they are not
going to confess that the gods who would not yield to Jove
have yielded to Christ. For, without altering the boundaries
of the empire, Jesus Christ has proved Himself able to drive
them, not only from their temples, but from the hearts of
their worshippers. But, before Christ came in the flesh, and,
indeed, before these things which we have quoted from their
books could have been written, but yet after that auspice was
made under king Tarquin, the Roman army has been divers
times scattered or put to flight, and has shown the falseness
of the auspice, which they derived from the fact that the god-
dess Juventas had not given place to Jove ; and the nation
dedicated to Mars was trodden down in the city itself by the
invading and triumphant Gauls; and the boundaries of the
empire, through the falling away of many cities to Hannibal,
had been hemmed into a narrow space. Thus the beauty of
the auspices is made void, and there has remained only the
contumacy against Jove, not of gods, but of demons. For it
is one thing not to have yielded, and another to have returned
whither you have yielded. Besides, even afterwards, in the
oriental regions, the boundaries of the Roman empire were
changed by the will of Hadrian; for he yielded up to the
Persian empire those three noble provinces, Armenia, Meso-
potamia, and Assyria. Thus that god Terminus, who accord-
ing to these books was the guardian of the Roman frontiers,
and by that most beautiful auspice had not given place to
Jove, would seem to have been more afraid of Hadrian, a
king of men, than of the king of the gods. The aforesaid

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provinces having also been taken back again, almost within
our own recollection the frontier fell back, when Julian, given
up to the oracles of their gods, with immoderate daring ordered
the victualling ships to be set on fire. The army being thus
left destitute of provisions, and he himself also being presently
killed by the enemy, and the legions being hard pressed, while
dismayed by the loss of their commander, they were reduced
to such extremities that no one could have escaped, unless by
articles of peace the boundaries of the empire had then been
established where they still remain ; not, indeed, with so great
a loss as was suffered by the concession of Hadrian, but still
at a considerable sacrifice. It was a vain augury, then, that
the god Terminus did not yield to Jove, since he yielded to
the will of Hadrian, and yielded also to the rashness of Julian,
and the necessity of Jovinian. The more intelligent and grave
Homans have seen these things, but have had little power
against the custom of the state, which was bound to observe
the rites of the demons; because even they themselves, although
they perceived that these things were vain, yet thought that
the religious worship which is due to God should be paid to
the nature of things which is established under the rule and
government of the one true God, "serving,” as saith the
apostle, "the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed
for evermore.”1 The help of this true God was necessary to
send holy and truly pious men, who would die for the true
religion that they might remove the false from among the
living.

30. What hvnd of things even their worshippers have owned they have thought
about the gods qf the nations.

Cicero the augur laughs at auguries, and reproves men for
regulating the purposes of life by the cries of crows and jack-
daws.* But it will be said that an academic philosopher, who
argues that all things are uncertain, is unworthy to have any
authority in these matters. In the second book of his De
Naiura Deorum ,* he introduces Lucilius Balbus, who, after
showing that superstitions have their origin in physical and
philosophical truths, expresses his indignation at the setting up

1 Rom. i. 25. * De Divin . ii 37.

* Cic. De Nat . Deorum, lib. ii c. 28.

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of images and fabulous notions, speaking thus : " Do you not
therefore see that from true and useful physical discoveries the
reason may be drawn away to fabulous and imaginary gods ?
This gives birth to false opinions and turbulent errors, and
superstitions well-nigh old-wifeish. For both the forms of
the gods, and their ages, and clothing, and ornaments, are
made familiar to us ; their genealogies, too, their marriages,
kinships, and all things about them, are debased to the like-
ness of human weakness. They are even introduced as having
perturbed minds ; for we have accounts of the lusts, cares,
and angers of the gods. Nor, indeed, as the fables go, have
the gods been without their wars and battles. And that not
only when, as in Homer, some gods on either side have de-
fended two opposing armies, but they have even carried on
wars on their own account, as with the Titans or with the
Giants. Such things it is quite absurd either to say or to
believe : they are utterly frivolous and groundless.” Behold,
now, what is confessed by those who defend the gods of the
nations. Afterwards he goes on to say that some things
belong to superstition, but others to religion, which he thinks
good to teach according to the Stoics. “ For not only the
philosophers,” he says, “ but also our forefathers, have made a
distinction between superstition and religion. For those,” he
says, " who spent whole days in prayer, and offered sacrifice,
that their children might outlive them, are called supersti-
tious.”1 Who does not see that he is trying, while he fears
the public prejudice, to praise the religion of the ancients, and
that he wishes to disjoin it from superstition, but cannot find
out how to do so ? For if those who prayed and sacrificed
all day were called superstitious by the ancients, were those
also called so who instituted (what he blames) the images of
the gods of diverse age and distinct clothing, and invented the
genealogies of gods, their marriages, and kinships? When,
therefore, these things are found fault with as superstitious,
he implicates in that fault the ancients who instituted and
worshipped such images. Nay, he implicates himself, who,
with whatever eloquence he may strive to extricate himself

1 Superstition, from tupertUt. Against this etymology of Cicero, see Lact,
JjuL Dw. iv. 28.

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and be free, was yet under the necessity of venerating these
images ; nor dared he so much as whisper in a discourse to the
people what in this disputation he plainly sounds forth. Let
us Christians, therefore, give thanks to the Lord our God, — not
to heaven and earth, as that author argues, but to Him who
has made heaven and earth ; because these superstitions, which
that Balbus, like a babbler,1 scarcely reprehends. He, by the
most deep lowliness of Christ, by the preaching of the apostles,
by the faith of the martyrs dying for the truth and living
with the truth, has overthrown, not only in the hearts of the
religious, but even in the temples of the superstitious, by their
own free service.

81. Concerning the opinions of Varro, who, while reprobating the popular belief,
thought that their worship should be confined to one god , though he was
unable to discover the true God.

What says Varro himself, whom we grieve to have found,
although not by his own judgment, placing the scenic plays
among things divine ? When in many passages he is exhort-
ing, like a religious man, to the worship of the gods, does he
not in doing so admit that he does not in his own judgment
believe those things which he relates that the Roman state
has instituted; so that he does not hesitate to affirm that if
he were founding a new state, he could enumerate the gods
and their names better by the rule of nature? But being
bom into a nation already ancient, he says that he finds him-
self bound to accept the traditional names and surnames of
the gods, and the histories connected with them, and that his
purpose in investigating and publishing these details is to in-
cline the people to worship the gods, and not to despise them.
By Which words this most acute man sufficiently indicates
that he does not publish all things, because they would not
only have been contemptible to himself, but would have
seemed despicable even to the rabble, unless they had been
passed over in silence. I should be thought to conjecture
these things, unless he himself, in another passage, had openly
said, in speaking of religious rites, that many things are true
which it is not only not useful for the common people to
know, but that it is expedient that the people should think

1 Balbus, from bcUbutiens, , stammering, babbling.

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otherwise, even though falsely, and therefore the Greeks have
shut up the religious ceremonies and mysteries in silence,
and within walls. In this he no doubt expresses the policy
of the so-called wise men by whom states and peoples are
ruled. Yet by this crafty device the malign demons are
wonderfully delighted, who possess alike the deceivers and the
deceived, and from whose tyranny nothing sets free save the
grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The same most acute and learned author also says, that
those alone seem to him to have perceived what God is, who
have believed Him to be the soul of the world, governing it
by design and reason.1 And by this, it appears, that although
he did not attain to the truth, — for the true God is not a
soul, but the maker and author of the soul, — yet if he could
have been free to go against the prejudices of custom, he could
have confessed and counselled others that the one God ought
to be worshipped, who governs the world by design and
reason ; so that on this subject only this point would remain
to be debated with him, that he had called Him a soul, and
not rather the creator of the soul He says, also, that the
ancient Romans, for more than a hundred and seventy years,
worshipped the gods without an imaga* "And if this
custom,” he says, "could have remained till now, the gods
would have been more purely worshipped” In favour of
this opinion, he cites as a witness among others the Jewish
nation; nor does he hesitate to conclude that passage by
saying of those who first consecrated images for the people,
that they have both taken away religious fear from their
fellow-citizens, and increased error, wisely thinking that the
gods easily fall into contempt when exhibited under the
stolidity of images. But as he does not say they have
transmitted error, but that they have increased it, he there-
fore wishes it to be understood that there was error already
when there were no images. Wherefore, when he says they
alone have perceived what God is who have believed Him to
be the governing soul of the world, and thinks that the rites
of religion would have been more purely observed without
images, who fails to see how near he has come to the truth ?

1 See Cicero, De Nat. Dear. L 2. * Plutarch’s Nwma , c. 8.

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For if he had been able to do anything against so inveterate
an error, he would certainly have given it as his opinion both
that the one God should be worshipped, and that He should
be worshipped without an image ; and having so nearly dis-
covered the truth, perhaps he might easily have been put in
mind of the mutability of the soul, and might thus have per-
ceived that the true God is, that immutable nature which
made the soul itself Since these things are so, whatever
ridicule such men have poured in their writings against the
plurality of the gods, they have done so rather as compelled
by the secret will of God to confess them, than as trying to
persuade others. If, therefore, any testimonies are adduced
by us from these writings, they are adduced for the confuta-
tion of those who are unwilling to consider from how great
and malignant a power of the demons the singular sacrifice
of the shedding of the most holy blood, and the gift of the
imparted Spirit, can set us free.

82. In what interest the princes of the nations wished false religions to continue
among the people subject to them.

Varro says also, concerning the generations of the gods, that
the people have inclined to the poets rather than to the
natural philosophers; and that therefore their forefathers, —
that is, the ancient Romans, — believed both in the sex and
the generations of the gods, and settled their marriages ;
which certainly seems to have been done for no other cause
except that it was the business of such men as were prudent
and wise to deceive the people in matters of religion, and in
that very thing not only to worship, but also to imitate the
demons, whose greatest lust is to deceive. For just as the
demons cannot possess any but those whom they have de-
ceived with guile, so also men in princely office, not indeed
being just, but like demons, have persuaded the people in the
name of religion to receive as true those things which they
themselves knew to be false ; in this way, as it were, binding
them up more firmly in civil society, so that they might in
like manner possess them as subjects. But who that was
weak and unlearned could escape the deceits of both the
princes of the state and the demons ?

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33. That (he times of all kings and kingdoms are ordained by (he judgment
and power of the true God,

Therefore that God, the author and giver of felicity, because
He alone is the true God, Himself gives earthly kingdoms both
to good and bad. Neither does He do this rashly, and, as it were,
fortuitously, — because He is God, not fortune, — but accord-
ing to the order of things and times, which is hidden from us,
but thoroughly known to Himself ; which same order of times,
however. He does not serve as subject to it, but Himself rules
as lord and appoints as governor. Felicity He gives only to
the good. Whether a man be a subject or a king makes no
difference : he may equally either possess or not possess it.
And it shall be full in that life where kings and subjects
exist no longer. And therefore earthly kingdoms are given
by Him both to the good and the bad ; lest His worshippers,
Btill under the conduct of a very weak mind, should covet
these gifts from Him as some great things. And this is the
mystery of the Old Testament, in which the New was hidden,
that there even earthly gifts are promised : those who were
spiritual understanding even then, although not yet openly
declaring, both the eternity which was symbolized by these
earthly things, and in what gifts of God true felicity could be
found.

34. Concerning the kingdom of the Jews , which was founded by the one and true

God , and preserved by Him as long as they remained in the true religion.

Therefore, that it might be known that these earthly good
things, after which those pant who cannot imagine better
things, remain in the power of the one God Himself, not of
the many false gods whom the Romans have formerly be-
lieved worthy of worship. He multiplied His people in Egypt
from being very few, and delivered them out of it by wonder-
ful signs. Nor did their women invoke Lucina when their
offspring was being incredibly multiplied; and that nation
having increased incredibly, He Himself delivered, He Him-
self saved them from the hands of the Egyptians, who perse-
cuted them, and wished to kill all their infants. Without the
goddess Rumina they sucked; without Cunina they were cradled;
without Educa and Potina they took food and drink ; without
all those puerile gods they were educated ; without the nuptial

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gods they were married ; without the worship of Priapus they
had conjugal intercourse ; without invocation of Neptune the
divided sea opened up a way for them to pass over, and over-
whelmed with its returning waves their enemies who pursued
them. Neither did they consecrate any goddess Mannia when
they received manna from heaven ; nor, when the smitten rock
poured forth water to them when they thirsted, did they
worship Nymphs and Lymphs. Without the mad rites of
Mars and Bellona they carried on war; and while, indeed,
they did not conquer without victory, yet they did not hold it
to be a goddess, but the gift of their God. Without Segetia
they had harvests; without Bubona, oxen; honey without
Mellona ; apples without Pomona : and, in a word, everything
for which the Komans thought they must supplicate so great
a crowd of false gods, they received much more happily from
the one true God. And if they had not sinned against Him
with impious curiosity, which seduced them like magic arts,
and drew them to strange gods and idols, and at last led them
to kill Christ, their kingdom would have remained to them,
and would have been, if not more spacious, yet more happy,
than that of Borne. And now that they are dispersed through
almost all lands and nations, it is through the providence of
that one true God; that whereas the images, altars, groves,
and temples of the false gods are everywhere overthrown, and
their sacrifices prohibited, it may be shown from their books
how this has been foretold by their prophets so long before ;
lest, perhaps, when they should be read in ours, they might
seem to be invented by us. But now, reserving what is to
follow for the following book, we must here set a bound to
the prolixity of this one.

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BOOK FIFTH.1

ARGUMENT.

AUGUSTINE FIRST DISCUSSES THE DOCTRINE OF FATE, FOR THE SAKE OF CON-
FUTING THOSE WHO ABE D18POSED TO REFER TO FATE THE POWER AND
INCREASE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, WHICH COULD NOT BE ATTRIBUTED TO
FALSE GODS, AS HAS BEEN 8HOWN IN THE PRECEDING BOOK. AFTER THAT,
HE PROVES THAT THERE 18 NO CONTRADICTION BETWEEN GOD’S PRESCIENCE
AND OUR FREE WILL. HE THEN SPEAKS OF THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENT
ROMANS, AND 8HOW8 IN WHAT SEN8E IT WAS DUE TO THE VIRTUE OF THE
ROMANS THEMSELVES, AND IN HOW FAB TO THE COUNSEL OF GOD; THAT' HE
INCREASED THEIR DOMINION, THOUGH THEY DID NOT WORSHIP HIM.
FINALLY, HE EXPLAINS WHAT IS TO BE ACCOUNTED THE TRUE HAPPINESS
OF THE CHBI8TIAN EMPERORS.

PREFACE.

SINCE, then, it is established that the complete attainment
of all we desire is that which constitutes felicity, which
is no goddess, but a gift of God, and that therefore men
can worship no god save Him who is able to make them
happy, — and were Felicity herself a goddess, she would with
reason be the only object of worship, — since, I say, this is
established, let us now go on to consider why God, who is able
to give with all other things those good gifts which can be
possessed by men who are not good, and consequently not
happy, has seen fit to grant such extended and long-continued
dominion to the Roman empire ; for that this was not effected
by that multitude of false gods which they worshipped, we
have both already adduced, and shall, as occasion offers, yet
adduce considerable proof.

1. That the cause of the Roman empire , and of ail kingdoms, is neither fortui-
tous nor consists in the position of the stars.9

The cause, then, of the greatness of the Roman empire is
neither fortuitous nor fatal, according to the judgment or

1 Written in the year 415.

* On the appUcation of astrology to national prosperity, and the success of
certain religions, see Lecky’s Rationalism, i. 803.

YOU L M

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opinion of those who call those things fortuitous which either
have no causes, or such causes as do not proceed from some
intelligible order, and those things fatal which happen in-
dependently of the will of God and man, by the necessity of a
certain order. In a word? human kingdoms are established by
divine providence. And if any one attributes their existence to
fate, because he calls the will or the power of God itself by the
name of fate, let him keep his opinion, but correct his language.
For why does he not say at first what he will say afterwards,
when some one shall put the question to him, What he means
by fate f For when men hear that word, according to the
ordinary use of the language, they simply understand by it
the virtue of that • particular position of the stars which may
exist at the time when any one is bom or conceived, which
some separate altogether from the will of God, whilst others
affirm that this also is dependent on that will But those who
are of opinion that, apart from the will of God, the stars deter-
mine what we shall do, or what good things we shall possess,
or what evils we shall suffer, must be refused a hearing by all,
not only by those who hold the true religion, but by those who
wish to be the worshippers of any gods whatsoever, even false
gods. For what does this opinion really amount to but this,
that no god whatever is to be worshipped or prayed to?
Against these, however, our present disputation is not intended
to be directed, but against those who, in defence of those whom
they think to be gods, oppose the Christian religion. They,
however, who make the position of the stars depend on the
divine will, and in a manner decree what character each man
shall have, and what good or evil shall happen to him, i/
they think that these same stars have that power conferred
upon them by the supreme power of God, in order that they
may determine these things according to their will, do a great
injury to the celestial sphere, in whose most brilliant senate,
and most splendid senate-house, as it were, they suppose that
wicked deeds are decreed to be done, — such deeds as that if any
terrestrial state should decree them, it would be condemned to
overthrow by the decree of the whole human race5 What
judgment, then, is left to God concerning the deeds of men,
who is Lord both of the stars and of men, when to these deeds

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a celestial necessity is attributed ? Or, if they do not say that
the stars, though they have indeed received a certain power from
God, who is supreme, determine those things according to their
own discretion, but simply that His commands are fulfilled by
them instrumentally in the application and enforcing of such
necessities, are we thus to think concerning God even what
it seemed unworthy that we should think concerning the will
of the stars ? But, if the stars are said rather to signify these
things than to effect them, so that that position of the stars is,
as it were, a kind of speech predicting, not causing future things,
— for this has been the opinion of men of no ordinary learning,
— certainly the mathematicians are not wont so to speak, saying,
for example, Mars in such or such a position signifies a homi-
cide, but makes a homicide. But, nevertheless, though we
grant that they do not speak as they ought, and that we ought
to accept as the proper form of speech that employed by the
philosophers in predicting those things which they think they
discover in the position of the stars, how comes it that they
have never been able to assign any cause why, in the life of
twins, in their actions, in the events which befall them, in
their professions, arts, honours, and other things pertaining to
human life, also in their very death, there is often so great a
difference, that, as far as these things are concerned, many
entire strangers are more like them than they are like each
other, though separated at birth by the smallest interval of
time, but at conception generated by the same act of copula-
tion, and at the same moment ?

2 . On the difference in the health of twins.

Cicero says that the famous physician Hippocrates has left
in writing that he had suspected that a certain pair of brothers
were twins, from the fact that they both took ill at once, and
their disease advanced to its crisis and subsided in the same
time in each of them.1 Posidonius the Stoic, who was much
given to astrology, used to explain the fact by supposing that
they had been bora and conceived under the same constella-
tion. In this question the conjecture of the physician is by
»

1 This fact is not recorded in any of the extant works of Hippocrates or Cicero.
Yives supposes it may have found place in Cicero’s book, De Fato .

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far more worthy to be accepted, and approaches much nearer
to credibility, since, according as the parents were affected in
body at the time of copulation, so might the first elements of
the foetuses have been affected, so that all that was necessary
for their growth and development up till birth having been
supplied from the body of the same mother, they might be
bom with like constitutions. Thereafter, nourished in the
same house, on the same kinds of food, where they would have
also the same kinds of air, the same locality, the same quality
of water, — which, according to the testimony of medical science,
have a very great influence, good or bad, on the condition of
bodily health, — and where they would also be accustomed to
the same kinds of exercise, they would have bodily constitu-
tions so similar that they would be similarly affected with sick-
ness at the same time and by the same causes. But, to wish
to adduce that particular position of the stars which existed
at the time when they were bom or conceived as the cause of
their being simultaneously affected with sickness, manifests the
greatest arrogance, when so many beings of most diverse kinds,
in the most diverse conditions, and subject to the most diverse
events, may have been conceived and bom at the same time,
and in the same district, lying under the same sky. But we
know that twins do not only act differently, and travel to very
different places, but that they also suffer from different kinds
of sickness ; for which Hippocrates would give what is in my
opinion the simplest reason, namely, that, through diversity
of food and exercise, which arises not from the constitution of
the body, but from the inclination of the mind, they may have
come to be different from each other in respect of health.
Moreover, Posidonius, or any other asserter of the fatal in-
fluence of the stars, will have enough to do to find anything
to say to this, if he be unwilling to impose upon the minds of
the uninstructed in things of which they are ignorant. But,
as to what they attempt to make out from that very small
interval of time elapsing between the births of twins, on ac-
count of that point in the heavens where the mark of the
natal hour is placed, and which they call the “ horoscope,” it
is either disproportionately small to the diversity which is
found in the dispositions, actions, habits, and fortunes of twins,

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or it is disproportionately great when compared with the estate
of twins, whether low or high, which is the same for both of
them, the cause for whose greatest difference they place, in
every case, in the hour on which one is bom ; and, for this
reason, if the one is bom so immediately after the other that
there is no change in the horoscope, I demand an entire simi-
larity in all that respects them both, which can never be found
in the case of any twins. But if the slowness of the birth of
the second give time for a change in the horoscope, I demand
different parents, which twins can never have.

3. Concerning the arguments which Nigidius the mathematician drew from
the potter* s wheel , in the question about the birth of twins.

It is to no purpose, therefore, that that famous fiction about
the potter's wheel is brought forward, which tells of the answer
which Nigidius is said to have given when he was perplexed
with this question, and on account of which he was called
Figzdus} For, having whirled round the potter’s wheel with
all his strength, he marked it with ink, striking it twice with
the utmost rapidity, so that the strokes seemed to fall on the
very same part of it Then, when the rotation had ceased,
the marks which he had made were found upon the rim of the
wheel at no small distance apart. Thus, said he, considering
the great rapidity with which the celestial sphere revolves,
even though twins were bom with as short an interval between
their births as there was between the strokes which I gave this
wheel, that brief interval of time is equivalent to a very great
distance in the celestial sphere. Hence, said he, come what-
ever dissimilitudes may be remarked in the habits and fortunes
of twins. This argument is more fragile than the vessels
which are fashioned by the rotation of that wheel. For if
there is so much significance in the heavens which cannot be
comprehended by observation of the constellations, that, in the
case of twins, an inheritance may fall to the one and not to
the other, why, in the case of others who are not twins, do
they dare, having examined their constellations, to declare such
things as pertain to that secret which no one can comprehend,
and to attribute them to the precise moment of the birth of each
individual ? Now, if such predictions in connection with the

1 i.e. the potter.

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natal hours of others who are not twins are to be vindicated on
the ground that they are founded on the observation of more ex-
tended spaces in the heavens, whilst those very small moments
of time which separated the births of twins, and correspond
to minute portions of celestial space, are to be connected with
trifling things about which the mathematicians are not wont
to be consulted, — for who would consult them as to when he is
to sit, when to walk abroad, when and on what he is to dine ?
— how can we be justified in so speaking, when we can point
out such manifold diversity both in the habits, doings, and
destinies of twins ?

4. Concerning the twins Esau and Jacob , who were very unlike each other
both in their character and actions.

In the time of the ancient fathers, to speak concerning
illustrious persons, there were bom two twin brothers, the
one so immediately after the other, that the first took hold of
the heel of the second. So great a difference existed in their
lives and manners, so great a dissimilarity in their actions, so
great a difference in their parents* love for them respectively,
that the very contrast between them produced even a mutual
hostile antipathy. Do we mean, when we say that they were
so unlike each other, that when the one was walking the other
was sitting, when the one was sleeping the other was waking,
— which differences are such as are attributed to those minute
portions of space which cannot be appreciated by those who
note down the position of the stars which exists at the moment
of one’s birth, in order that the mathematicians may be con-
sulted concerning it ? One of these twins was for a long time
a hired servant ; the other never served. One of them was
beloved by his mother ; the other was not so. One of them
lost that honour which was so much valued among their
people; the other obtained it And what shall we say of
their wives, their children, and their possessions ? How dif-
ferent they were in respect to all these ! If, therefore, such
things as these are connected with those minute intervals of
time which elapse between the births of twins, and are not to
be attributed to the constellations, wherefore are they predicted
in the case of others from the examination of their constella-
tions ? And if, on the other hand, these things are said to be

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predicted, because they are connected, not with minute and
inappreciable -moments, but with intervals of time which can be
observed and noted down, what purpose is that potter's wheel
to serve in this matter, except it be to whirl round men who
have hearts of day, in order that they may be prevented from
detecting the emptiness of the talk of the mathematicians ?

5. In what manner the mathematicians are convicted of prqfessing a vain science.

Do not those very persons whom the medical sagacity of
Hippocrates led him to suspect to be twins, because their
.disease was observed by him to develope to its crisis and to
subside again in the same time in each of them, — do not these,
I say, serve as a sufficient refutation of those who wish to
attribute to the influence of the stars that which was owing
to a similarity of bodily constitution? For wherefore were
they both sick of the same disease, and at the same time, and
not the one after the other in the order of their birth ? (for
certainly they could not both be bom at the same time.) Or,
if the fact of their having been bom at different times by no
means necessarily implies that they must be sick at different
times, why do they contend that the difference in the time of
their births was the cause of their difference in other things ?
Why could they travel in foreign parts at different times,
marry at different times, beget children at different times, and
do many other things at different times, by reason of their
having been bom at different times, and yet could not, for
the same reason, also be sick at different times ? For if a
difference in the moment of birth changed the horoscope, and
occasioned dissimilarity in all other things, why has that
simultaneousness which belonged to their conception remained
in their attacks of sickness ? Or, if the destinies of health
are involved in the time of conception, but those of other
things be said to be attached to the time of birth, they ought
not to predict anything concerning health from examination
of the constellations of birth, when the hour of conception is
not also given, that its constellations may be inspected. But
if they say that they predict attacks of sickness without ex-
amining the horoscope of conception, because these are indi-
cated by the moments of birth, how could they inform either

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of these twins when he would be sick, from the horoscope of
his birth, when the other also, who had not the same horoscope
of birth, must of necessity fall sick at the same time ? Again,
I ask, if the distance of time between the births of twins is
so great as to occasion a difference of their constellations on
account of the difference of their horoscopes, and therefore of
all the cardinal points to which so much influence is attributed,
that even from such change there comes a difference of destiny,
how is it possible that this should be so, since they cannot
have been conceived at different times ? Or, if two conceived
at the same moment of time could have different destinies
with respect to their births, why may not also two bom at
the same moment of time have different destinies for life and
for death ? For if the one moment in which both were con-
ceived did not hinder that the one should be bom before the
other, why, if two are bom at the same moment, should any-
thing hinder them from dying at the same moment ? If a
simultaneous conception allows of twins being differently
affected in the womb, why should not simultaneousness of
birth allow of any two individuals having different fortunes
in the world t and thus would all the fictions of this art, or
rather delusion, be swept away. What strange circumstance
is this, that two children conceived at the same time, nay, at
the same moment, under the same position of the stars, have
different fates which bring them to different hours of birth,
whilst two children, bom of two different mothers, at the same
moment of time, under one and the same position of the stars,
cannot have different fates which shall conduct them by neces-
sity to diverse manners of life and of death ? Are they at
conception as yet without destinies, because they can only
have them if they be bom? What, therefore, do they mean
when they say that, if the hour of the conception be found,
many things can be predicted by these astrologers? from
which also arose that story which is reiterated by some, that
a certain sage chose an hour in which to lie with his wife, in
order to secure his begetting an illustrious son. From this
opinion also came that answer of Posidonius, the great astro-
loger and also philosopher, concerning those twins who were
attacked with sickness at the same time, namely, “ That this

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had happened to them because they were conceived at the
same time, and bom at the same time” For certainly he
added “ conception,” lest it should be said to him that they
could not both be lorn at the same time, knowing that at any
rate they must both have been conceived at the same time ;
wishing thus to show that he did not attribute the fact of
their being similarly and simultaneously affected with sickness
to the similarity of their bodily constitutions as its proximate
cause, but that he held that even in respect of the similarity
of their health, they were bound together by a sidereal con-
nection. If, therefore, the time of conception has so much to
do with the similarity of destinies, these same destinies ought
not to be changed by the circumstances of birth ; or, if the
destinies of twins be said to be changed because they are
bom at different times, why should we not rather understand
that they had been already changed in order that they might
be bom at different times ? Does not, then, the will of men
living in the world change the destinies of birth, when the
order of birth can change the destinies they had at conception ?

6. Concerning twins of different sexes .

But even in the very conception of twins, which certainly
occurs at the same moment in the case of both, it often hap-
pens that the one is conceived a male, and the other a female.
I know two of different sexes who are twins. Both of them
are alive, and in the flower of their age ; and though they
resemble each other in body, as far as difference of sex will
permit, still they are very different in the whole scope and
purpose of their lives (consideration being had of those differ-
ences which necessarily exist between the lives of males and
females), — the one holding the office of a count, and being
almost constantly away from home with the army in foreign
service, the other never leaving her country's soil, or her
native district Still more, — and this is more incredible, if the
destinies of the stars are to be believed in, though it is not
wonderful if we consider the wills of men, and the free gifts
of God, — he is married ; she is a sacred virgin : he has begotten
a numerous offspring ; she has never even married. But is
not the virtue of the horoscope very great ? I think I have
said enough to show the absurdity of that But, say those

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astrologers, whatever be the virtue of the horoscope in other
respects, it is certainly of significance with respect to birth.
But why not also with respect to conception, which takes
place undoubtedly with one act of copulation ? And, indeed,
so great is the force of nature, that after a woman has once
conceived, she ceases to be liable to conception. Or were
they, perhaps, changed at birth, either he into a male, or she
into a female, because of the difference in their horoscopes ?
But, whilst it is not altogether absurd to say that certain
sidereal influences have some power to cause differences in
bodies alone, — as, for instance, we see that the seasons of the
year come round by the approaching and receding of the sun,
and that certain kinds of things are increased in size or
diminished by the waxings and wanings of the moon, such
as sea-urchins, oysters, and the wonderful tides of the ocean, —
it does not follow that the vrills of mm are to be made subject
to the position of the stars. The astrologers, however, when
they wish to bind our actions also to the constellations, only
set us on investigating whether, even in these bodies, the
changes may not be attributable to some other than a sidereal
causa For what is there which more intimately concerns a
body than its sex ? And yet, under the same position of the
stars, twins of different sexes may be conceived. Wherefore,
what greater absurdity can be affirmed or believed than that
the position of the stars, which was the same for both of them
at the time of conception, could not cause that the one child
should not have been of a different sex from her brother, with
whom she had a common constellation, whilst the position of
the stars which existed at the hour of their birth could cause
that she should be separated from him by the great distance
between marriage and holy virginity ?

7. Concerning Hie choosing of a day for marriage t, or for planting, or sowing.

Now, will any one bring forward this, that in choosing
certain particular days for particular actions, men bring about
certain new destinies for their actions ? -That man, for instance,
according to this doctrine, was not bom to have an illustrious
son, but rather a contemptible one, and therefore, being a man
of learning, he chose an hour in which to lie with his wife.

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He made, therefore, a destiny which he did not have before,
and from that destiny of his own making something began to
be fatal which was not contained in the destiny of his natal
hour. Oh, singular stupidity ! A day is chosen on which to
marry ; and for this reason, I believe, that unless a day be
chosen, the marriage may fall on an unlucky day, and turn
out an unhappy ona What then becomes of what the stars
have already decreed at the hour of birth ? Can a man be
said to change by an act of choice that which has already
been determined for him, whilst that which he himself has
determined in the choosing of a day cannot be changed by
another power ? Thus, if men alone, and not all things under
heaven, are subject to the influence of the stars, why do they
choose some days as suitable for planting vines or trees, or for
Sowing grain, other days as suitable for taming beasts on, or
for putting the males to the females, that the cows and mares
may be impregnated, and for such-like things ? If it be said
that certain chosen days have an influence on these things,
because the constellations rule over all terrestrial bodies,
animate and inanimate, according to differences in moments
of time, let it be considered what innumerable multitudes of
beings are bom or arise, or take their origin at the very same
instant of time, which come to ends so different, that they
may persuade any little boy that these observations about
days are ridiculous. For who is so mad as to dare affirm
that all trees, all herbs, all beasts, serpents, birds, fishes,
worms, have each separately their own moments of birth or
commencement? Nevertheless, men are wont, in order to
tay the skill of the mathematicians, to bring before them the
constellations of dumb animals, the constellations of whose
birth they diligently observe at home with a view to this
discovery ; and they prefer those mathematicians to all others,
who say from the inspection of the constellations that they
indicate the birth of a beast and not of a man. They also
dare tell what kind of beast it is, whether it is a wool-bearing
beast, or a beast suited for carrying burthens, or one fit for
the plough, or for watching a house ; for the astrologers are
also tried with respect to the fates of dogs, and their answers
concerning these are followed by shouts of admiration on the

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part of those who consult them. They so deceive men as to
make them think that during the birth of a man the births
of all other beings are suspended, so that not even a fly comes
to life at the same time that he is being bom, under the same
region of the heavens. And if this be admitted with respect
to the fly, the reasoning cannot stop there, but must ascend
from flies till it lead them up to camels and elephants. Nor
are they willing to attend to this, that when a day has been,
chosen whereon to sow a field, so many grains fall into -the
ground simultaneously, germinate simultaneously, spring up,
come to perfection, and ripen simultaneously ; and yet, of all
the ears which are coeval, and, so to speak, congerminal, some
are destroyed by mildew, some are devoured by the birds, and
some are pulled by men. How can they say that all these
had their different constellations, which they see coming to so
different ends? Will they confess that it is folly to choose
days for such things, and to affirm that they do not come
within the sphere of the celestial decree, whilst they subject
men alone to the stars, on whom alone in the world God has
bestowed free wills ? All these things being considered, we
have good reason to believe that, when the astrologers give
very many wonderful answers, it is to be attributed to the
occult inspiration of spirits not of the best kind, whose care
it is to insinuate into the minds of men, and to confirm in
them, those false and noxious opinions concerning the fatal
influence of the stars, and not to their marking and inspecting
of horoscopes, according to some kind of art which in reality
has no existence.

8. Concerning those who call by the name of fate , not the position of the stars ,
but the connection of causes which depends on the will of God .

But, as to those who call by the name of fate, not the dis-
position of the stars as it may exist when any creature is
conceived, or bom, or commences its existence, but the whole
connection and train of causes which makes everything become
what it does become, there is no need that I should labour
and strive with them in a merely verbal controversy, since
they attribute the so-called order and connection of causes to
the will and power of God most high, who is most rightly
and most truly believed to know all things before they come

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to pass, and to leave nothing unordained ; from whom are all
powers, although the wills of all are not from Him. Now,
that it is chiefly the will of God most high, whose power
extends itself irresistibly through all things which they call
fate, is proved by the following verses, of which, if I mistake
not, Annaeus Seneca is the author : —

“ Father supreme, Thou ruler of the lofty heavens,

Lead me where’er it is Thy pleasure ; I will give
A prompt obedience, making no delay,

Lo ! here I am. Promptly I come to do Thy sovereign will ;

If Thy command shall thwart my inclination, I will still
Follow Thee groaning, and the work assigned,

With all the suffering of a mind repugnant,

Will perform, being evil ; which, had I been good,

I should have undertaken and performed, though hard,

With virtuous cheerfulness.

The Fates do lead the Aan that follows willing ;

But the man that is unwilling, him they drag."1

Most evidently, in this last verse, he calls that * fate ” which
he had before called “ the will of the Father supreme,” whom,
he says, he is ready to obey that he may be led, being willing,
not dragged, being unwilling, since “the Fates do lead the
man that follows willing, but the man that is unwilling, him
they drag.”

The following Homeric lines, which Cicero translates into
Latin, also favour this opinion : —

“ Such are the minds of men, as is the light
Which Father Jove himself doth pour
Illustrious o'er the fruitful earth."2

Not that Cicero wishes that a poetical sentiment should
have any weight in a question like this ; for when he says
that the Stoics, when asserting the power of fate, were in the
habit of using these verses from Homer, he is not treating
concerning the opinion of that poet, but concerning that of
those philosophers, since by these verses, which they quote in
connection with the controversy which they hold about fate,
is most distinctly manifested what it is which they reckon
fate, since they call by the name of Jupiter him whom they
reckon the supreme god, from whom, they say, hangs the
whole chain of fates.

1 EpteL 107. * Odyssey, xviri. 136, 137.

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9. Concerning the foreknowledge qf God and the free will of man , in opposition
to the definition of Cicero.

The manner in which Cicero addresses himself to the task
of refuting the Stoics, shows that he did not think he could
effect anything against them in argument unless he had first
demolished divination.1 And this he attempts to accomplish
by denying that there is any knowledge of future things,
and maintains with all his might that there is no such know-
ledge either in God or man, and that there is no prediction
of events. Thus he both denies the foreknowledge of God,
and attempts by vain arguments, and by opposing to himself
certain oracles very easy to be refuted, to overthrow all pro-
phecy, even such as is clearer than the light (though even
these oracles are not refuted by him).

But, in refuting these conjectures of the mathematicians, his
argument is triumphant, because truly these are such as destroy
and refute themselves. Nevertheless, they are far more toler-
able who assert the fatal influence of the stars than they who
deny the foreknowledge of future events. For, to confess that
God exists, and at the same time to deny that He has fore-
knowledge of future things, is the most manifest folly. This
Cicero himself saw, and therefore attempted to assert the
doctrine embodied in the words of Scripture, “ The fool hath
said in his heart, There is no God.”2 That, however, he did
not do in his own person, for he saw how odious and offensive
such an opinion would be ; and, therefore in his book on the
nature of the gods,8 he makes Cotta dispute concerning this
against the Stoics, and preferred to give his own opinion in ,
favour of Lucilius Balbus, to whom he assigned the defence of
the Stoical position, rather than in favour of Cotta, who main-
tained that no divinity exists. However, in his book on
divination, he in his own person most openly opposes the
doctrine of the prescience of future things. But all this he
seems to do in order that he may not grant the doctrine of
fate, and by so doing destroy free will For he thinks that,
the knowledge of future things being once conceded, fate fol-
lows as so necessary a consequence that it cannot be denied. .

But, let these perplexing debatings and disputations of the
1 De DivinaL ii. * Ps. xiv. 1. * Book iii.

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philosophers go on as they may, we, in order that we may
confess the most high and true God Himself, do confess His
will, supreme power, and prescience. Neither let us be afraid
lest, after all, we do not do by will that which we do by will,
because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew that
we would do it. It was this which Cicero was afraid of, and
therefore opposed foreknowledge. The Stoics also maintained
that all things do not come to pass by necessity, although
they contended that all things happen according to destiny.
What is it, then, that Cicero feared in the prescience of future
things? Doubtless it was this, — that if all future things
have been foreknown, they will happen in the order in which
they have been foreknown ; and if they come to pass in this
order, there is a certain order of things foreknown by God;
and if a certain order of things, then a certain order of causes,
for nothing can happen which is not preceded by some efficient
cause. But if there is a certain order of causes according to
which everything happens which does happen, then by fate,
says he, all things happen which do happen. But if this be
so, then is there nothing in our own power, and there is no
such thing as freedom of will ; and if we grant that, says he,
the whole economy of human life is subverted. In vain are
laws enacted. In vain are reproaches, praises, chidings, ex-
hortations had recourse to ; and there is no justice whatever
in the appointment of rewards for the good, and punishments
for the wicked. And that consequences so disgraceful, and
absurd, and pernicious to humanity may not- follow, Cicero
chooses to reject the foreknowledge of future things, and shuts
up the religious mind to this alternative, to make choice be-
tween two things, either that something is in our own power,
or that there is foreknowledge, — both of which cannot be true ;
but if the one is affirmed, the other is thereby denied. He
therefore, like a truly great and wise man, and one who con-
sulted very much and very skilfully for the good of humanity,
of those two chose the freedom of the will, to confirm which
he denied the foreknowledge of future things ; and thus, wish-
ing to make men free, he makes them sacrilegious. But the
religious mind chooses both, confesses both, and maintains
both by the faith of piety. But how so ? says Cicero ; for the

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knowledge of future things being granted, there follows a chain
of consequences which ends in this, that there can be nothing
depending on our own free wills. And further, if there is
anything depending on our wills, we must go backwards by
the same steps of reasoning till we arrive at the conclusion
that there is no foreknowledge of future things. For we go
backwards through all the steps in the following order: —
If there is free will, all things do not happen according to
fate ; if all things do not happen according to fate, there is
not a certain order of causes; and if there is not a certain
order of causes, neither is there a certain order of things fore-
known by God, — for things cannot come to pass except they
are preceded by efficient causes, — but, if there is no fixed and
certain order of causes foreknown by God, all things cannot
be said to happen according as He foreknew that they would
happen. And further, if it is not true that all things happen
just as they have been foreknown by Him, there is not, says
he, in God any foreknowledge of future events.

Now, against the sacrilegious and impious darings of
reason, we assert both that God knows all things before
they come to pass, and that we do by our free will what-
soever we know and feel to be done by us only because
we will it. But that all things come to pass by fate, we
do not say; nay we affirm that nothing comes to pass by
fate ; for we demonstrate that the name of fate, as it is wont
to be used by those who speak of fate, meaning thereby the
position of the stars at the time of each one's conception
or birth, is an unmeaning word, for astrology itself is a delu-
sion. But an order of causes in which the highest efficiency
is attributed to the will of God, we neither deny nor do we
designate it by the name of fate, unless, perhaps, we may
understand fate to mean that which is spoken, deriving it from
jari, to speak ; for we cannot deny that it is written in the
sacred Scriptures, “ God hath spoken once ; these two things
have I heard, that power belongeth unto God. Also unto
Thee, 0 God, belongeth mercy: for Thou wilt render unto
every man according to his works.”1 Now the expression,
“ Once hath He spoken,” is to be understood as meaning “ im-

1 Ps. lxii. 11, 12.

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movably ” that is, unchangeably hath He spoken, inasmuch as
He knows unchangeably all things which shall be, and all
things which He will do. We might, then, use the word fate
in the sense it bears when derived from fari, to speak, had it
not already come to be understood in another sense, into which
I am unwilling that the hearts of men should unconsciously
slide. But it does not follow that, though there is for God a
certain order of all causes, there must therefore be nothing
depending on the free exercise of our own wills, for our wills
themselves are included in that order of causes which is certain
to God, and is embraced by His foreknowledge, for human
wills are also causes of human actions ; and He who foreknew
all the causes of things would certainly among those causes
not have been ignorant of our wills. For even that very con-
cession which Cicero himself makes is enough to refute him
in this argument. For what does it help him to say that
nothing takes place without a cause, but that every cause is
not fatal, there being a fortuitous cause, a natural cause, and
a voluntary cause ? It is sufficient that he confesses that
whatever happens must be preceded by a cause. For we say

that those causes which are called fortuitous are not a mere

*

name for the absence of causes, but are only latent, and we
attribute them either to the will of the true God, or to that of
spirits of some kind or other. And as to natural causes, we by
no means separate them from the will of Him who is the author
and framer of all nature. But now as to voluntary causes.
They are referable either to God, or to angels, or to men, or to
animals of whatever description, if indeed those instinctive
movements of animals devoid of reason, by which, in accord-
ance with their own nature, they seek or shun various things,
are to be called wills. And when I speak of the wills of
angels, I mean either the wills of good angels, whom we call
the angels of God, or of the wicked angels, whom we call the
angels of the devil, or demons. Also by the wills of men I
mean the wills either of the good or of the wicked. And from
this we conclude that there are no efficient causes of all things
which come to pass unless voluntary causes, that is, such as
belong to that nature which is the spirit of life. For the air
or wind is called spirit, but, inasmuch as it is a body, it is not
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the spirit of life. The spirit of life, therefore, which quickens
all things, and is the creator of every body, and of every
^created spirit, is God Himself, the uncreated spirit. In His
supreme will resides the power which acts on the wills of all
created spirits, helping the good, judging the evil, controlling
i all, granting power to some, not granting it to others. For,
as He is the creator of all natures, so also is He the bestower
of all powers, not of all wills ; for wicked wills are not from
Him, being contrary to nature, which is from Him. As to
bodies, they are more subject to wills : some to our wills, by
which I mean the wills of all living mortal dreatures, but
more to the wills of men than of beasts. But all of them are
most of all subject to the will of God, to whom all wills also
are subject, since they have no power except what He has
bestowed upon them. The cause of things, therefore, which
makes but is not made, is God ; but all other causes both
make and are made. Such are all created spirits, and especially
the rationaL Material causes, therefore, which may rather
be said to be made than to make, are not to be reckoned
among efficient causes, because they can only do what the
^ wills of spirits do by them. How, then, does an order of
causes which is certain to the foreknowledge of God necessitate
that there should be nothing which is dependent on our wills,
when our wills themselves have a very important place in the
order of causes ? Cicero, then, contends with those who call
this order of causes fatal, or rather designate this order itself
by the name of fate ; to which we have an abhorrence, espe-
cially on account of the word, which men have become ac-
customed to understand as meaning what is not true. But,
whereas he denies that the order of all causes is most certain,
and perfectly clear to the prescience of God, we detest his
opinion more than the Stoics do. For he either denies that
God exists, — which, indeed, in an assumed personage, he has
laboured to do, in his book De Naiura Deorum, — or if he
confesses that He exists, but denies that He is prescient of
future things, what is that but just “ the fool saying in his
heart there is no God ?” For one who is not prescient of all
future things is not God. Wherefore our wills also have just I
so much power as God willed and foreknew that they should I

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have ; and therefore whatever power they have, they have it \
within most certain limits ; and whatever they are to do, they J
are most assuredly to do, for He whose foreknowledge is in-
fallible foreknew that they would have the power to do it,
and would do it. Wherefore, if I should choose to apply the
name of fate to anything at all, I should rather say that fate
belongs to the weaker of two parties, will to the stronger, who
has the other in his power, than that the freedom of our will
is excluded by that order of causes, which, by an unusual
application of the word peculiar to themselves, the Stoics call
Fate,

10. Whether our units are ruled by necessity .

Wherefore, neither is that necessity to be feared, for dread
of which the Stoics laboured to make such distinctions among
the causes of things as should enable them to rescue certain
things from the dominion of necessity, and to subject others to
it Among those things which they wished not to be subject
to necessity they placed our wills, knowing that they would
not be free if subjected to necessity. For if that is to be
called our necessity which is not in our power, but' even though
we be unwilling effects what it can effect, — as, for instance, the
necessity of death, — it is manifest that our wills by which we
live uprightly or wickedly are not under such a necessity;
for we do many things which, if we were not willing, we should
certainly not do. This is primarily true of the act of willing
itself, — for if we will, it is; if we will not, it is not, — for we
should not will if we were unwilling. But if we define neces-
sity to be that according to which we say that it is necessary
that anything be of such or such a nature, or be done in such and
such a manner, I know not why we should have any dread of
that necessity taking away the freedom of our will For we
do not put the life of God or the foreknowledge of God under
necessity if we should say that it is necessary that God should
live for ever, and foreknow all things ; as neither is His power
diminished when we say that He cannot die or fall into error, —
for this is in such a way impossible to Him, that if it were
possible for Him, He would be of less power. But assuredly
He is rightly called omnipotent, though He can neither die
nor fall into error. For He is called omnipotent on account

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of His doing what He wills, not on account of His suffering
what He wills not ; for if that should befall Him, He would by
no means be omnipotent. Wherefore, He cannot do some
things for the very reason that He is omnipotent. So also,
when we say that it is necessary that, when we will, we will
by free choice, in so saying we both affirm what is true beyond
doubt, and do not still subject our wills thereby to a necessity
which destroys liberty. Our wills, therefore, exist as wills, and
do themselves whatever we do by willing, and which would
not be done if we were unwilling. But when any one suffers
anything, being unwilling, by the will of another, even in that
case will retains its essential validity, — we do not mean the
will of the party who inflicts the suffering, for we resolve it
into the power of God. For if a will should simply exist, but
not be able to do what it wills, it would be overborne by a
more powerful will. Nor would this be the case unless there
had existed will, and that not the will of the other party, but
the will of him who willed, but was not able to accomplish
what he willed. Therefore, whatsoever a man suffers contrary
to his own will, he ought not to attribute to the will of men,
or of angels, or of any created spirit, but rather to His will
who gives power to wills. It is not the case, therefore, that

I because God foreknew what would be in the power of our
wills, there is for that reason nothing in the power of our
wills. For he who foreknew this did not foreknow nothing.
Moreover, if He who foreknew what would be in the power of
our wills did not foreknow nothing, but something, assuredly,
even though He did foreknow, there is something in the power
of our wills. Therefore we are by no means compelled, either,
retaining the prescience of God, to take away the freedom of
the will, or, retaining the freedom of the will, to deny that He
is prescient of future things, which is impious. But we em-
brace both. We faithfully and sincerely confess both. The
former, that we may believe well ; the latter, that we may live
well For he lives ill who does not believe well concerning
God. Wherefore, be it far from us, in order to maintain our
freedom, to deny the prescience of Him by whose help we are
or shall be free. Consequently, it is not in vain that laws are
enacted, and that reproaches, exhortations, praises, and vitu-

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perations are had recourse to ; for these also He foreknew, and
they are of great avail, even as great as He foreknew that they
would be of Prayers, also, are of avail to procure those things
which He foreknew that He would grant to those who offered j
them ; and with justice have rewards been appointed for good I
deeds, and punishments for sins. For a man does not there-
fore sin because God foreknew that he would sin. Hay, it
cannot be doubted but that it is the man himself who sins
when he does sin, because He, whose foreknowledge is in-
fallible, foreknew not that fate, or fortune, or something else
would sin, but that the man himself would sin, who, if he
wills not, sins not But if he shall not will to sin, even this
did God foreknow.

11. Concerning the universal providence of Qod in the laws of which aU things
are comprehended .

Therefore God supreme and true, with His Word and Holy
Spirit (which three are one), one God omnipotent, creator and
maker of every soul and of every body ; by whose gift all are
happy who are happy through verity and not through vanity;
who made man a rational animal consisting of soul and body,
who, when he sinned, neither permitted him to go unpunished, '
nor left him without mercy ; who has given to the good and
to the evil, being in common with stones, vegetable life in
common with trees, sensuous life in common with brutes,
intellectual life in common with angels alone; from whom
is every mode, every species, every order; from whom are
measure, number, weight; from whom is everything which
has an existence in nature, of whatever kind it be, and of
whatever value ; frofti whom are the seeds of forms and the
forms of seeds, and the motion of seeds and of forms ; who
gave also to flesh its origin, beauty, health, reproductive
fecundity, disposition of members, and the salutary concord of
its parts ; who also to the irrational soul has given memory,
sense, appetite, but to the rational soul, in addition to these,
has given intelligence and will ; who has not left, not to speak
of heaven and earth, angels and men, but not even the entrails
of the smallest and most contemptible animal, or the feather
of a bird, or the little flower of a plant, or the leaf of a tree,
without an harmony, and, as it were, a mutual peace among

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all its parts; — that God can never be believed to have left
the kingdoms of men, their dominations and servitudes, outside
of the laws of His providence.

12. By what virtues the ancient Romans merited that the true God, although they
did not worship Him, should enlarge their empire.

Wherefore let us go on to consider what virtues of the
Romans they were which the true God, in whose power are
also the kingdoms of the earth, condescended to help in
order to raise the empire, and also for what reason He did so.
And, in order to discuss this question on clearer ground, we
have written the former books, to show that the power of
those gods, who, they thought, were to be worshipped with
such trifling and silly rites, had nothing to do in this matter ;
and also what we have already accomplished of the present
volume, to refute the doctrine of fate, lest any one who might
have been already persuaded that the Roman empire was not
extended and preserved by the worship of these gods, might
still be attributing its extension and preservation to some kind
of fate, rather than to the most powerful will of God most
high. The ancient and primitive Romans, therefore, though
* their history shows us that, like all the other nations, with
the sole exception of the Hebrews, they worshipped false gods,
and sacrificed victims, not to God, but to demons, have never-
theless this commendation bestowed on them by their historian,
that they were “ greedy of praise, prodigal of wealth, desirous
of great glory, and content with a moderate fortune.”1 Glory
they most ardently loved : for it they wished to live, for it
they did not hesitate to die. Every other desire was repressed
by the strength of their passion for that one thing. At length
their country itself, because it seemed inglorious to serve, but
glorious to rule and to command, they first earnestly desired
to be free, and then to be mistress. Hence it was that, not
enduring the domination of kings, they put the government
into the hands of two chiefs, holding office for a year, who
were called consuls, not kings or lords.2 But royal pomp

1 Sallust, Cat. vii.

* Augustine notes that the name consul is derived from consvlere, and thus
signifies a more benign rule than that of a rex (from regere), or dominus (from
dominari).

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seemed inconsistent with the administration of a ruler ( regrn-
tis ), or the benevolence of one who consults (that is, for the
public good) (consulentis), but rather with the haughtiness of
a lord (dominarUis). King Tarquin, therefore, having been
banished, and the consular government having been instituted,
it followed, as the same author already alluded to says in his
praises of the Romans, that “the state grew with amazing
rapidity after it had obtained liberty, so great a desire of
glory had taken possession of it.” That eagerness for praise
and desire of glory, then, was that which accomplished those
many wonderful things, laudable, doubtless, and glorious ac-
cording to human judgment The same Sallust praises the
great men of his own time, Marcus Cato, and Caius Caesar,
saying that for a long time the republic had no one great in
virtue, but that within his memory there had been these two
men of eminent virtue, and very different pursuits. Now,
among the praises which he pronounces on Caesar he put
this, that he wished for a great empire, an army, and a new
war, that he might have a sphere where his genius and virtue
might shine forth. Thus it was ever the prayer ot men of
heroic character that Bellona would excite miserable nations
to war, and lash them into agitation with her bloody scourge,
so that there might be occasion for the display of their
valour. This, forsooth, is what that desire of praise and
thirst for glory did. Wherefore, by the love of liberty in the
first place, afterwards also by that of domination and through
the desire of praise and glory, they achieved many great things;
and their most eminent poet testifies to their having been
prompted by all these motives :

“ Porsenna there, with pride elate,

Bids Rome to Tarquin ope her gate ;

With arms he hems the city in,
jEneas’ sons stand firm to win. ”l

At that time it was their greatest ambition either to die
bravely or to live free ; but when liberty was obtained, so
great a desire of glory took possession of them, that liberty
alone was not enough unless domination also should be sought,

1 jEneid, viii. 646.

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their great ambition being that which the same poet puts into
the mouth of Jupiter :

u Nay, Juno's self, whose wild alarms
Set ocean, earth, and heaven in arms.

Shall change for smiles her moody frown.

And vie with me in zeal to crown
Home’s sons, the nation of the gown.

So stands my wilL There comes a day.

While Rome’s great ages hold their way.

When old Assaracus’s sons
Shall quit them on the myrmidons.

O’er Phthia and Mycenae reign.

And humble Argos to their chain.”1

Which things, indeed, Virgil makes Jupiter predict as future,
whilst, in reality, he was only himself passing in review in his
own mind things which were already done, and which were
beheld by him as present realities. But I have mentioned
them with the intention of showing that, next to liberty, the
Eomans so highly esteemed domination, that it received a
place among those things on which they bestowed the greatest
praise. Hence also it is that that poet, preferring to the arts
of other nations those arts which peculiarly belong to the
Romans, namely, the arts of ruling and commanding, and of
subjugating and vanquishing nations, says,

“ Others, belike, with happier grace,

From bronze or stone shall call the face.

Plead doubtful causes, map the skies.

And tell when planets set or rise ;

But Roman thou, do thou control
The nations far and wide ;

Be this thy genius, to impose
The rule of peace on vanquished foes.

Show pity to the humbled soul.

And crush the sons of pride.”*

These arts they exercised with the more skill the less they
gave themselves up to pleasures, and to enervation of body
and mind in coveting and amassing riches, and through these
corrupting morals, by extorting them from the miserable
citizens and lavishing them on base stage-players. Hence
these men of base character, who abounded when Sallust
wrote and Virgil sang these things, did not seek after honours
1 jEneid, l 279. * Ibid. vi. 847.

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and glory by these arts, but by treachery and deceit. Where-
fore the same says, “ But at first it was rather ambition than
avarice that stirred the minds of men, which vice, however, is
nearer to virtue. For glory, honour, and power are desired
alike by the good man and by the ignoble ; but the former,”
he says, “ strives onward to them by the true way, whilst
the other, knowing nothing of the good arts, seeks them
by fraud and deceit.”1 And what is meant by seeking the
attainment of glory, honour, and power by good arts, is to seek
them by virtue, and not by deceitful intrigue ; for the good
and the ignoble man alike desire these things, but the good
man strives to overtake them by the true way. The way is
virtue, along which he presses as to the goal of possession —
namely, to glory, honour, and power. Now that this was a
sentiment engrained in the Roman mind, is indicated even
by the temples of their gods; for they built in very close
proximity the temples of Virtue and Honour, worshipping
as gods the gifts of God. Hence we can understand what
they who were good thought to be the end of virtue, and to
what they ultimately referred it, namely, to honour; for, as
to the bad, they had no virtue though they desired honour,
and strove to possess it by fraud and deceit. Praise of a
higher kind is bestowed upon Cato, for he says of him,
“ The less he sought glory, the more it followed him.”2 We
say praise of a higher kind; for the glory with the desire
of which the Romans burned is the judgment of men think-
ing well of men. And therefore virtue is better, which is
content with no human judgment save that of one’s own con-
science. Whence the apostle says, “ For this is our glory,
the testimony of our conscience.”8 And in another place he
says, “ But let every one prove his own work, and then he
shall have glory in himself, and not in another.”4 That glory,
honour, and power, therefore, which they desired for them-
selves, and to which the good sought to attain by good arts,
should not be sought after by virtue, but virtue by them.
For there is no true virtue except that which is directed
towards that end in which is the highest and ultimate good

1 Sallust, in Cat. c. xi. * Sallust, in Cat. c. 54.

* 2 Cor. i. 12. 4 Gal. vL 4.

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of man. Wherefore even the honours which Cato sought he
ought not to have sought, but the state ought to have con-
ferred them on him unsolicited, on account of his virtues.

But, of the two great Romans of that time, Cato was he
whose virtue was by far the nearest to the true idea of virtue.
Wherefore, let us refer to the opinion of Cato himself, to dis-
cover what was the judgment he had formed concerning the
condition of the state both then and in former times. “ I do
not think,” he says, “ that it was by arms that our ancestors
made the republic great from being small Had that been the
case, the republic of our day would have been by far more
flourishing than that of their times, for the number of our
allies and citizens is far greater ; and, besides, we possess a
far greater abundance of armour and of horses than they did.
But it was other things than these that made them great, and
we have none of them: industry at home, just government
without, a mind free in deliberation, addicted neither to crime
nor to lust. Instead of these, we have luxury and avarice,
poverty in the state, opulence among citizens ; we laud riches,
we follow laziness ; there is no difference made between the
good and the bad ; all the rewards of virtue are got possession
of by intrigue. And no wonder, when every individual con-
sults only for his own good, when ye are the slaves of pleasure
at home, and, in public affairs, of money and favour, no wonder
that an onslaught is made upon the. unprotected republic.”1

He who hears these words of Cato or of Sallust probably
thinks that such praise bestowed on the ancient Romans was
applicable to all of them, or, at least, to very many of them.

. It is not so ; otherwise the things which Cato himself writes,
and which I have quoted in the second book of this work,
would not be true. In that passage he says, that even from
the very beginning of the state wrongs were committed by
the more powerful, which led to the separation of the people
from the fathers, besides which there were other internal dis-
sensions ; and the only time at which there existed a just and
moderate administration was after the banishment of the kings,
and that no longer than whilst they had cause to be afraid of
Tarquin, and were carrying on the grievous war which had
1 Sallust, in Cat . c. 52.

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been undertaken on his account against Etruria ; but after-
wards the fathers oppressed the people as slaves, flogged them
as the kings had done, drove them from their land, and, to
the exclusion of all others, held the government in their own
hands alone. And to these discords, whilst the fathers were
wishing to rule, and the people were unwilling to serve, the
second Punic war put an end ; for again great fear began to
press upon their disquieted minds, holding them back from
those distractions by another and greater anxiety, and bring-
ing them back to civil concord. But the great things which
were then achieved were accomplished through the admini-
stration of a few men, who were good in their own way. And
by the wisdom and forethought of these few good men, which
first enabled the republic to endure these evils and mitigated
them, it waxed greater and greater. And this the same his-
torian affirms, when he says that, reading and hearing of the
many illustrious achievements of the Roman people in peace
and in war, by land and by sea, he wished to understand what
it was by which these great things were specially sustained.
For he knew that very often the Romans had with a small
company contended with great legions of the enemy ; and he
knew also that with small resources they had carried on wars
with opulent kings. And he says that, after having given
the matter much consideration, it seemed evident to him that
the pre-eminent virtue of a few citizens had achieved the
whole, and that that explained how poverty overcame wealth,
and small numbers great multitudes. But, he adds, after that
the state had been corrupted by luxury and indolence, again
the republic, by its own greatness, was able to bear the vices
of its magistrates and generals. Wherefore even the praises
of Cato are only applicable to a few ; for only a few were
possessed of that virtue which leads men to pursue after
glory, honour, and power by the true way, — -.that is, by virtue
itself. This industry at home, of which Cato speaks, was the
consequence of a desire to enrich the public treasury, even
though the result should be poverty at home ; and therefore,
when he speaks of the evil arising out of the corruption of
morals, he reverses the expression, and says, “ Poverty in the
state, riches at home.”

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13. Concerning the love of praise , which, though it is a vice , is reckoned a virtue,
because by it greater vice is restrained .

Wherefore, when the kingdoms of the East had been illus-
trious for a long time, it pleased God that there should also
arise a Western empire, which, though later in time, should
be more illustrious in extent and greatness. And, in order
that it might overcome the grievous evils which existed among
other nations, He purposely granted it to such men as, for the
sake of honour, and praise, and glory, consulted well for their
country, in whose glory they sought their own, and whose
safety they did not hesitate to prefer to their own, suppressing
the desire of wealth and many other vices for this one vice,
namely, the love of praise. For he has the soundest percep-
tion who recognises that even the love of praise is a vice ;
nor has this escaped the perception of the poet Horace, who
says,

“ You're bloated by ambition ? take advice :

Yon book will ease you if you read it thrice. M1

And the same poet, in a lyric song, hath thus spoken with
the desire of repressing the passion for domination :

“ Rule an ambitious spirit, and thou hast
A wider kingdom than if thou shouldst join
To distant Gades Lybia, and thus
Shouldst hold in service either Carthaginian. ”*

Nevertheless, they who restrain baser lusts, not by the
power of the Holy Spirit obtained by the faith of piety,
or by the love of intelligible beauty, but by desire of human
praise, or, at all events, restrain them better by the love of
such praise, are not indeed yet holy, but only less base.
Even Tully was not able to conceal this fact; for, in the
same books which he wrote, De Republica, when speaking
concerning the education of a chief of the state, who ought,
he says, to be nourished on glory, goes on to say that their
ancestors did many wonderful and illustrious things through
desire of glory. So far, therefore, from resisting this vice, they
even thought that it ought to be excited and kindled up, sup-
posing that that would be beneficial to the republic. But not
even in his books on philosophy does Tully dissimulate this
1 Horace, Epist. L 1. 36, 37. * Hor. Carm. ii. 2.

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poisonous opinion, for he there avows it more clearly than
day. For when he is speaking of those studies which are to
he pursued with a view to the true good , and not with the
vainglorious desire of human praise, he introduces the follow-
ing universal and general statement :

“Honour nourishes the arts, and all are stimulated to the prosecution of
studies by glory ; and those pursuits are always neglected which are generally
discredited.”1

14. Concerning the eradication of the love of human praise y because all the glory
of the righteous is in Ood .

It is, therefore, doubtless far better to resist this desire
than to yield to it, for the purer one is from this defile-
ment, the liker is he to God; and, though this vice be not
thoroughly eradicated from his heart, — for it does not cease to
tempt even the minds of those who are making good progress
in virtue, — at any rate, let the desire of glory be surpassed by
the love of righteousness, so that, if there be seen anywhere
“ lying neglected things which are generally discredited,” if
they are good, if they are right, even the love of human
praise may blush and yield to the love of truth. For so
hostile is this vice to pious faith, if the love of glory be
greater in the heart than the fear or love of God, that the
Lord said, “ How can ye believe, who look for gloiy from one
another, and do not seek the glory which is from God alone ?”2
Also, concerning some who had believed on Him, but were
afraid to confess Him openly, the evangelist says, “ They loved
the praise of men more than the praise of God;”* which did
not the holy apostles, who, when they proclaimed the name
of Christ in those places where it was not only discredited,
and therefore neglected, — according as Cicero says, "Those
things are always neglected which are generally discredited,”
— but was even held in the utmost detestation, holding to
what they had heard from the Good Master, who was also
the physician of minds, “If any one shall deny me before
men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven,
and before the angels of God,”4 amidst maledictions and
reproaches, and most grievous persecutions and cruel punish-

1 Tusc. Qucest. i. 2. * John y. 44.

* John xii. 43. 4 Matt x. 33.

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ments, were not deterred from the preaching of human salva-
tion by the noise of human indignation. And when, as they
did and spake divine things, and lived divine lives, conquering,
as it were, hard hearts, and introducing into them the peace
of righteousness, great glory followed them in the church
of Christ, they did not rest in that as in the end of their
virtue, but, referring that glory itself to the glory of God, by
whose grace they were what they were, they sought to kindle,
also by that same flame, the minds of those for whose good
they consulted, to the love of Him, by whom they could be
made to be what they themselves were. For their Master had
taught them not to seek to be good for the sake of human
glory, saying, “ Take heed that ye do not your righteousness
before men to be seen of them, or otherwise ye shall not
have a reward from your Father who is in heaven.”1 But
again, lest, understanding this wrongly, they should, through
fear of pleasing men, be less useful through concealing their
goodness, showing for what end they ought to make it known.
He says, “ Let your works shine before men, that they may
see your good deeds, and glorify your Father who is in
heaven.”3 Not, observe, “ that ye may be seen by them, that
is, in order that their eyes may be directed upon you,” — for
of yourselves ye are nothing, — but “that they may glorify
your Father who is in heaven,” by fixing their regards on
whom they may become such as ye are. These the martyrs
followed, who surpassed the Scaevolas, and the Curtiuses, and
the Deciuses, both in true virtue, because in true piety,
and also in the greatness of their number. But since those
Romans were in an earthly city, and had before them, as
the end of all the offices undertaken in its behalf, its safety,
and a kingdom, not in heaven, but in earth, — not in the sphere
of eternal life, but in the sphere of demise and succession,
where the dead are succeeded by the dying, — what else but
glory should they love, by which they wished even after
death to live in the mouths of their admirers ?

15. Concerning the temporal reward which Ood granted to the virtues qf the

Romans.

Now, therefore, with regard to those to whom God did not
1 Matt. vi. 1. * Matt v. 10.

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purpose to give eternal life with His holy angels in His own
celestial city, to the society of which that true piety which
does not render the service of religion, which the Greeks call
Xarpeuij to any save the true God conducts, if He had also
withheld from them the terrestrial glory of that most excellent
empire, a reward would not have been rendered to their good
arts, — that is, their virtues, — by which they sought to attain
so great glory. For as to those who seem to do some good
that they may receive glory from men, the Lord also says,
“ Verily I say unto you, they have received their reward”1
So also these despised their own private affairs for the sake
of the republic, and for its treasury resisted avarice, consulted
for the good of their country with a spirit of freedom, addicted
neither to what their laws pronounced to be crime nor to lust
By all these acts, as by the true way, they pressed forward to
honours, power, and glory ; they were honoured among almost
all nations ; they imposed the laws of their empire upon many
nations ; and at this day, both in literature and history, they
are glorious among almost all nations. There is no reason why
they should complain against the justice of the supreme and
true God, — " they have received their reward”

16. Concerning the reward of the holy citizens of the celestial city , to whom the
example of the virtues of the Roman are useful.

But the reward of the saints is far different, who even
here endured reproaches for that city of God which is hate-
ful to the lovers of this world. That city is eternal There
none are bom, for none die. There is true and full felicity,
— not a goddess, but a gift of God Thence we receive the
pledge of faith, whilst on our pilgrimage we sigh for its
beauty. There rises not the sun on the good and the evil, but
the Sun of Righteousness protects the good alone. There no
great industry shall be expended to enrich the public treasury
by suffering privations at home, for there is the -common
treasury of truth. And, therefore, it was not only for the
sake of recompensing the citizens of Rome that her empire
and glory had been so signally extended, but also that the
citizens of that eternal city, during their pilgrimage here,
might diligently and soberly contemplate these examples, and

1 Matt. vi. 2.

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see what a love they owe to the supernal country on account
of life eternal, if the terrestrial country was so much beloved
by its citizens on account of human glory.

17. To what profit the Romans carried on wars, and how much they contributed
to the well-being qf those whom they conquered.

For, as far as this life of mortals is concerned, which is
spent and ended in a few days, what does it matter under
whose government a dying man lives, if they who govern do
not force him to impiety and iniquity ? Did the Romans at
all harm those nations, on whom, when subjugated, they im-
posed their laws, except in as far as that was accomplished
with great slaughter in war ? Now, had it been done with
consent of the nations, it would have been done with greater
success, but there would have been no glory of conquest, for
neither did the Romans themselves live exempt from those
laws which they imposed on others. Had this been done
without Mars and Bellona, so that there should have been no
place for victory, no one conquering where no one had fought,
would not the condition of the Romans and of the other
nations have been one and the same, especially if that had been
done at once which afterwards was done most humanely and
most acceptably, namely, the admission of all to the rights of
Roman citizens who belonged to the Roman empire, and if
that had been made the privilege of all which was formerly
the privilege of a few, with this one condition, that the
humbler class who had no lands of their own should live at
the public expense — an alimentary impost, which would have
been paid with a much better grace by them into the hands
of good administrators of the republic, of which they were
members, by their own hearty consent, than it would have
been paid with had it to be extorted from them as conquered
men ? For I do not see what it makes for the safety, good
morals, and certainly not for the dignity, of men, that some
have conquered and others have been conquered, except that
it yields them that most insane pomp of human glory, in
which “ they have received their reward,” who burned with
excessive desire of it, and carried on most eager wars. For
do not their lands pay tribute ? Have they any privilege of
learning what the others are not privileged to learn ? Are

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there not many senators in the other countries who do not
even know Rome by sight ? Take away outward show,1 and
what are all men after all but men ? But even though the
perversity of the age should permit that all the better men
should be more highly honoured than others, neither thus
should human honour be held at a great price, for it is smoke
which has no weight But let us avail ourselves even in
these things of the kindness of God. Let us consider how
great things they despised, how great things they endured,
what lusts they subdued for the sake of human glory, who
merited that glory, as it were, in reward for such virtues ; and
let this be useful to us even in suppressing pride, so that, as
that city in which it has been promised us to reign as far
surpasses this one as heaven is distant from the earth, as
eternal life surpasses temporal joy, solid glory empty praise,
or the society of angels the society of mortals, or the glory of
Him who made the sun and moon the light of the sun and
moon, the citizens of so great a country may not seem to
themselves to have done anything very great, if, in order to
obtain it, they have done some good works or endured some
evils, when those men for this terrestrial country already ob-
tained, did such great things, suffered such great things. And
especially are all these things to be considered, because the
remission of sins which collects citizens to the celestial country
has something in it to which a shadowy resemblance is found
in that asylum of Romulus, whither escape from the punish-
ment of all maimer of crimes congregated that multitude with
which the state was to be founded.

18. How far Christians ought to he from boasting, if they have done anything
for the love of the eternal country, when the Romans did such great
things for human glory and a terrestrial city.

What great thing, therefore, is it for that eternal and celestial
city to despise all the charms of this world, however pleasant,
if for the sake of this terrestrial city Brutus could even put
to death his son, — a sacrifice which the heavenly city compels
no one to make ? But certainly it is more difficult to put to
death one’s sons, than to do what is required to be done for
the heavenly country, even to distribute to the poor those

1 Jactantia,

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things which were looked upon as things to be amassed and
laid up for one’s children, or to let them go, if there arise any
temptation which compels us to do so, for the sake of faith and
righteousness. For it is not earthly riches which make us or
our sons happy ; for they must either be lost by us in our life-
time, or be possessed when we are dead, by whom we know not,
or perhaps by whom we would not. But it is God who makes
us happy, who is the true riches of minds. But of Brutus,
even the poet who celebrates his praises testifies that it was
the occasion of unhappiness to him that he slew his son, for
he says,

“ And call his own rebellions seed
For menaced liberty to bleed.

Unhappy father ! howsoe’er

The deed be judged by after days.’'/

But in the following verse he consoles him in his unhappiness,
saying,

“ His country’s love shall all o’erbear. ”

There are those two things, namely, liberty and the desire
of human praise, which compelled the Komans to admirable
deeds. If, therefore, for the liberty of dying men, and for
the desire of human praise which is sought after by mortals,
sons could be put to death by a father, what great thing is it,
if, for the true liberty which has made us free from the do-
minion of sin, and death, and the devil, — not through the desire
of human praise, but through the earnest desire of freeing men,
not from King Tarquin, but from demons and the prince of
the demons, — we should, I do not say put to death our sons,
but reckon among our sons Christ’s poor ones ? If, also,
another Roman chief, sumamed Torquatus, slew his son, not
because he fought against his country, but because, being
challenged by an enemy, he through youthful impetuosity
fought, though for his country, yet contrary to orders which
he his father had given as general ; and this he did, notwith-
standing that his son was victorious, lest there should be more
evil in the example of authority despised, than good in the
glory of slaying an enemy ; — if, I say, Torquatus acted thus,
wherefore should they boast themselves, who, for the laws of
a celestial country, despise all earthly good things, which are
1 J&neid , vi 820.

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loved far less than sons ? If Furius Camillus, who was con-
demned by those who envied him, notwithstanding that he
had thrown off from the necks of his countrymen the yoke of
their most bitter enemies, the Veientes, again delivered his
ungrateful country from the Gauls, because he had no other
in which he could have better opportunities for living a life
of glory ; — if Camillus did thus, why should he be extolled as
having done some great thing, who, having, it may be, suffered
in the church at the hands of carnal enemies most grievous
and dishonouring injury, has not betaken himself to heretical
enemies, or himself raised some heresy against her, but has
rather defended her, as far as he was able, from the most per-
nicious perversity of heretics, since there is not another church,
I say not in which one can live a life of glory, but in which
eternal life can be obtained ? If Mucius, in order that peace
might be made with King Porsenna, who was pressing the
Romans with a most grievous war, when he did not succeed
in slaying Porsenna, but slew another by mistake for him,
reached forth his right hand and laid it on a red-hot altar,
saying that many such as he saw him to be had conspired for
his destruction, so that Porsenna, terrified at his daring, and at
the thought of a conspiracy of such as he, without any delay
recalled all his warlike purposes, and made peace ; — if, I say,
Mucius did this, who shall speak of his meritorious claims to
the kingdom of heaven, if for it he may have given to the flames
not one hand, but even his whole body, and that not by his own
spontaneous act, but because he was persecuted by another ?
If Curtius, spurring on his steed, threw himself all armed
into a precipitous gulf, obeying the oracles of their gods,
which had commanded that the Romans should throw into
that gulf the best thing which they possessed, and they could
only understand thereby that, since they excelled in men and
arms, the gods had commanded that an armed man should be
cast headlong into that destruction ; — if he did this, shall we
say that that man has done a great thing for the eternal city
who may have died by a like death, not, however, precipitating
himself spontaneously into a gulf, but having suffered this
death at the hands of some enemy of his faith, more espe-
cially when he has received from his Lord, who is also King of

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his country, a more certain oracle, “ Fear not them who kill
the body, but cannot kill the soul V ,l If the Decii dedicated
themselves to death, consecrating themselves in a form of
words, as it were, that falling, and pacifying by their blood
the wrath of the gods, they might be the means of delivering
the Roman army ; — if they did this, let not the holy martyrs
carry themselves proudly, as though they had done some meri-
torious thing for a share in that country where are eternal life
and felicity, if even to the shedding of their blood, loving not
only the brethren for whom it was shed, but, according as had
been commanded them, even their enemies by whom it was
being shed, they have vied with one another in faith of love
and love of faith. If Marcus Pulvillus, when engaged in
dedicating a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, received
with such indifference the false intelligence which was brought
to him of the death of his son, with the intention of so agitat-
ing him that he should go away, and thus the glory of dedicat-
ing the temple should fall to his colleague ; — if he received
that intelligence with such indifference that he even ordered
that his son should be cast out unburied, the love of glory
having overcome in his heart the grief of bereavement, how
shall any one affirm that he has done a great thing for the
preaching of the gospel, by which the citizens of the heavenly
city are delivered from divers errors, and gathered together
from divers wanderings, to whom his Lord has said, when
anxious about the burial of his father, “ Follow me, and let
the dead bury their dead ?”* Regulus, in order not to break
his oath, even with his most cruel enemies, returned to them
from Rome itself, because (as he is said to have replied to the
Romans when they wished to retain him) he could not have
the dignity of an honourable citizen at Rome after having been
a slave to the Africans, and the Carthaginians put him to
death with the utmost tortures, because he had spoken against
them in the senate. If Regulus acted thus, what tortures are
not to be despised for the sake of good faith toward that
country to whose beatitude faith itself leads ? Or what will
a man have rendered to the Lord for all He has bestowed upon
him, if, for the faithfulness he owes to Him, he shall have
1 Matt x. 28. • Matt. viii. 22.

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suffered such things as Regulus suffered at the hands of his
most ruthless enemies for the good faith which . he owed to
them ? And how shall a Christian dare vaunt himself of his
voluntary poverty, which he has chosen in order that during
the pilgrimage of this life he may walk the more disencumbered
on the way which leads to the country where the true riches
are, even God Himself; — how, I say, shall he vaunt himself
for this,, when he hears or reads that Lucius Valerius, who
died when he was holding the office of consul, was so poor
that his funeral expenses were paid with money collected by
the people ? — or when he hears that Quintius Cincinnatus,
who, possessing only four acres of land, and cultivating them
with his own hands, was taken from the plough to be made
dictator, — an office more honourable even than that of consul,
— and that, after having won great glory by conquering the
enemy, he preferred notwithstanding to continue in his poverty?
Or how shall he boast of having done a great thing, who has
not been prevailed upon by the offer of any reward of this
world to renounce his connection with that heavenly and
eternal country, when he hears that Fabricius could not be pre-
vailed on to forsake the Roman city by the great gifts offered
to him by Pyrrhus king of the Epirots, who promised him the
fourth part of his kingdom, but preferred to abide there in his
poverty as a private individual ? For if, when their republic,
— that is, the interest of the people, the interest of the country,
the common interest, — was most prosperous and wealthy, they
themselves were so poor in their own houses, that one of them,
who had already been twice a consul, was expelled from that
senate of poor men by the censor, because he was discovered
to possess, ten pounds weight of silver-plate, — since, I say,
those very men by whose triumphs the public treasury was
enriched were so poor, ought not all Christians, who make
common property of their riches with a far nobler purpose,
even that (according to what is written in the Acts of the
Apostles) they may distribute to each one according to his
need, and that no one may say that anything is his own, but
that all things may be their common possession,1 — ought they
not to understand that they should not vaunt themselves, be-

1 Acta ii. 45.

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cause they do that to obtain the society of angels, when those
men did well-nigh the same thing to preserve the glory of the
Romans ?

How could these, and whatever like things are found in the
Roman history, have become so widely known, and have been
proclaimed by so great a fame, had not the Roman empire,
extending far and wide, been raised to its greatness by mag-
nificent successes ? Wherefore, through that empire, so ex-
tensive and of so long continuance, so illustrious and glorious
also through the virtues of such great men, the reward which
they sought was rendered to their earnest aspirations, and also
examples are set before us, containing necessary admonition,
in order that we may be stung with shame if we shall see that
we have not held fast those virtues for the sake of the most
glorious city of God, which are, in whatever way, resembled
by those virtues which they held fast for the sake of the glory
of a terrestrial city, and that, too, if we shall feel conscious
that we have held them fast, we may not be lifted up with
pride, because, as the apostle says, "The sufferings of the
present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory
which shall be revealed in us.”1 But so far as regards human
and temporal glory, the lives of these ancient Romans were
reckoned sufficiently worthy. Therefore, also, we see, in the*
light of that truth which, veiled in the Old Testament, is re-
vealed in the New, namely, that it is not in view of terrestrial
and temporal benefits, which divine providence grants promis-
cuously to good and evil, that God is to be worshipped, but in
view of eternal life, everlasting gifts, and of the society of the
heavenly city itself ; — in the light of this truth we see that
the Jews were most righteously given as a trophy to the glory
of the Romans ; for we see that these Romans, who rested on
earthly glory, and sought to obtain it by virtues, such as they
were, conquered those who, in their great depravity, slew and
rejected the giver of true glory, and of the eternal city.

19. Concerning the difference between true glory and the desire of domination.

There is assuredly a difference between the desire of human
glory and the desire of domination ; for, though he who has

1 Rom. viii. 18.

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an overweening delight in human glory will be also very prone
to aspire earnestly after domination, nevertheless they who
desire the true glory even of human praise strive not to dis-
please those who judge well of them. For there are many
good moral qualities, of which many are competent judges,
although they are not possessed by many ; and by those good
moral qualities those men press on to glory, honour, and domi-
nation, of whom Sallust says, “ But they press on by the true
way.”

But whosoever, without possessing that desire of glory
which makes one fear to displease those who judge his con-
duct, desires domination and power, very often seeks to obtain
what he loves by most open crimes. Therefore he who desires
glory presses on to obtain it either by the true way, or cer-
tainly by deceit and artifice, wishing to appear good when
he is not. Therefore to him who possesses virtues it is a
great virtue to despise glory ; for contempt of it is seen by
God, but is not manifest to human judgment. For whatever
any one does before the eyes of men in order to show himself
to be a despiser of glory, if they suspect that he is doing it
in order to get greater praise, — that is, greater glory, — he has
no means of demonstrating to the perceptions of those who
suspect him that the case is really otherwise than they sus-
pect it to be. But he who despises the judgment of praisers,
despises also the rashness of suspectors. Their salvation, in-
deed, he does not despise, if he is truly good ; for so great is
the righteousness of that man who receives his virtues from
the Spirit of God, that he loves his very enemies, and so loves
them that he desires that his haters and detractors may be
turned to righteousness, and become his associates, and that not
in an earthly but in a heavenly country. But with respect
to his praisers, though he sets little value on their praise, he
does not set little value on their love ; neither does he elude
their praise, lest he should forfeit their love. And, therefore,
he strives earnestly to have their praises directed to Him from
whom every one receives whatever in him is truly praise-
worthy* But he who is a despiser of glory, but is greedy of
domination, exceeds the beasts in the vices of cruelty and
luxuriousness. Such, indeed, were certain of the Homans,

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who, wanting the love of esteem, wanted not the thirst for
domination ; and that there were many such, history testifies.
But it was Nero Caesar who was the first to reach the summit,
and, as it were, the citadel, of this vice ; for so great was his
luxuriousness, that one would have thought there was nothing
manly to be dreaded in him, and such his cruelty, that, had
not the contrary been known, no one would have thought
there was anything effeminate in his character. Nevertheless
power and domination are not given even to such men save
by the providence of the most high God, when He judges that
the state of human affairs is worthy of such lords. The divine
utterance is dear on this matter ; for the Wisdom of God thus
speaks: "By me kings reign, and tyrants possess the land.”1
But, that it may not be thought that by “ tyrants” is meant,
not wicked and impious kings, but brave men, in accordance
with the ancient use of the word, as when Virgil says,

“ For know that treaty may not stand
Where king greets king and joins not hand,”2

in another place it is most unambiguously said of God, that
He “ maketh the man who is an hypocrite to reign on account
of the perversity of the people.”* Wherefore, though I have,
according to my ability, shown for what reason God, who
alone is true and just, helped forward the Romans, who were
good according to a certain standard of an earthly state, to
the acquirement of the glory of so great an empire, there may
be, nevertheless, a more hidden cause, known better to God
than to us, depending on the diversity of the merits of the
human raca Among all who are truly pious, it is at all
events agreed that no one without true piety — that is, true
worship of the true God — can have true virtue ; and that it
is not true virtue which is the slave of human praise. Though,
nevertheless, they who are not citizens of the eternal city,
which is called the city of God in the sacred Scriptures, are
more useful to the earthly city when they possess even that
virtue than if they had not even that But there could be
nothing more fortunate for human affairs than that, by the
mercy of God, they who are endowed with true piety of life,
if they have the skill for ruling people, should also have the
1 Pro v. yiii 15. 2 JSneid, vii 266. 9 Job xxxiv. 30.

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power. But such men, however great virtues they may possess
in this life, attribute it solely to the grace of God that He has
bestowed it on them — willing, believing, seeking. And, at
the same time, they understand how far they are short of that
perfection of righteousness which exists in the society of those
holy angels for which they are striving to fit themselves. But
however much that virtue may be praised and cried up, which
without true piety is the slave of human glory, it is not at
all to be compared even to the feeble beginnings of the virtue
of the saints, whose hope is placed in the grace and mercy of
the true God.

20. That it is as shameful for the virtues to serve human glory as bodily pleasure.

Philosophers, — who place the end of human good in virtue
itself, in order to put to shame certain other philosophers, who
indeed approve of the virtues, but measure them all with
reference to the end of bodily pleasure, and think that this
pleasure is to be sought for its own sake, but the virtues on
account of pleasure, — are wont to paint a kind of word-picture,
in which Pleasure sits like a luxurious queen on a royal seat,
and all the virtues are subjected to her as slaves, watching her
nod, that they may do whatever she shall command She
commands Prudence to be ever on the watch to discover
how Pleasure may rule, and be safe. Justice she orders to
grant what benefits she can, in order to secure those friend-
ships which are necessary for bodily pleasure ; to do wrong
to no one, lest, on account of the breaking of the laws, Pleasure
be not able to live in security. Fortitude she orders to keep
her mistress, that is, Pleasure, bravely in her mind, if any
affliction befall her body which does not occasion death, in
order that by remembrance of former delights she may miti-
gate the poignancy of present pain. Temperance she com-
mands to take only a certain quantity even of the most
favourite food, lest, through immoderate use, anything prove
hurtful by disturbing the health of the body, and thus Pleasure,
which the Epicureans make to consist chiefly in the health
of the body, be grievously offended. Thus the virtues, with
the whole dignity of their glory, will be the slaves of Pleasure,
as of some imperious and disreputable woman.

There is nothing, say our philosophers, more disgraceful

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and monstrous than this picture, and which the eyes of good
men can less endure. And they say the truth. But I do
not think that the picture would be sufficiently becoming,
even if it were made so that the virtues should be repre-
sented as the slaves of human glory ; for, though that glory
be not a luxurious woman, it is nevertheless puffed up, and
has much vanity in it. Wherefore it is unworthy of the
solidity and firmness of the virtues to represent them as
serving this glory, so that Prudence shall provide nothing,
Justice distribute nothing. Temperance moderate nothing,
except to the end that men may be pleased and vainglory
served. Nor will they be able to defend themselves from the
charge of such baseness, whilst they, by way of being despisers
of glory, disregard the judgment of other men, seem to them-
selves wise, and please themselves. For their virtue, — if, in-
deed, it is virtue at all, — is only in another way subjected to
human praise ; for he who seeks to please himself seeks still
to please man. But he who, with true piety towards God,
whom he loves, believes, and hopes in, fixes his attention more
on those things in which he displeases himself, than on those
things, if there are any such, which please himself, or rather,
not himself, but the truth, does not attribute that by which
he can now please the truth to anything but to the mercy of
Him whom he has feared to displease, giving thanks for what
in him is healed, and pouring out prayers for the healing of
that which is yet unhealed.

21. That the Roman dominion was granted by Him from whom is dll power ,
and by whose providence all things are ruled .

These things being so, we do not attribute the power of
giving kingdoms and empires to any save to the true God,
who gives happiness in the kingdom of heaven to the pious
alone, but gives kingly power on earth both to the pious and
the impious, as it may please Him, whose good pleasure is
always just. For though we have said something about the
principles which guide His administration, in so far as it has
seemed good to Him to explain it, nevertheless it is too much
for us, and far surpasses our strength, to discuss the hidden
things of men’s hearts, and by a clear examination to deter-
mine the merits of various kingdoms. He, therefore, who is

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the one true God, who never leaves the human race without
just judgment and help, gave a kingdom to the Romans when
He would, and as great as He would, as He did also to the
Assyrians, and even the Persians, by whom, as their own books
testify, only two gods are worshipped, the one good and the
other evil, — to say nothing concerning the Hebrew people, of
whom I have already spoken as much as seemed necessary,
who, as long as they were a kingdom, worshipped none save
the true God. The same, therefore, who gave to the Persians
harvests, though they did not worship the goddess Segetia,
who gave the other blessings of the earth, though they did
not worship the many gods which the Romans supposed to
preside, each one over some particular thing, or even many of
them over each several thing, — He, I say, gave the Persians
dominion, though they worshipped none of those gods to
whom the Romans believed themselves indebted for the
empire. And the same is true in respect of men as well
as nations. He who gave power to Marius gave it also to
Caius Caesar; He who gave it to Augustus gave it also to
Nero ; He also who gave it to the most benignant emperors,
the Vespasians, father and son, gave it also to the cruel
Domitian; and, finally, to avoid the necessity of going over
them all, He who gave it to the Christian Constantine gave
it also to the apostate Julian, whose gifted mind was deceived
by a sacrilegious and detestable curiosity, stimulated by the
love of power. And it was because he was addicted through
curiosity to vain oracles, that, confident of victory, he burned
the ships which were laden with the provisions necessary for
his army, and therefore, engaging with hot zeal in rashly
audacious enterprises, he was soon slain, as the just con-
sequence of his recklessness, and left his army unprovisioned
in an enemy's country, and in such a predicament that it
never could have escaped, save by altering the boundaries of
the Roman empire, in violation of that omen of the god Ter-
minus of which I spoke in the preceding book; for the god
Terminus yielded to necessity, though he had not yielded to
Jupiter. Manifestly these things are ruled and governed by
the one God according as He pleases ; and if His motives are
hid, are they therefore unjust ?

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22. The durations and issues of war depend on the will of God.

Thus also the durations of wars are determined by Him
as He may see meet, according to His righteous will, and
pleasure, and mercy, to afflict or to console the human race,
so that they are sometimes of longer, sometimes of shorter
duration. The war of the Pirates and the third Punic war
were terminated with incredible celerity. Also the war of
the fugitive gladiators, though in it many Roman generals
and the consuls were defeated, and Italy was terribly wasted
and ravaged, was nevertheless ended in the third year, having
itself been, during its continuance, the end of much. The
Picentes, the Marsi, and the Peligni, not distant but Italian
nations, after a long and most loyal servitude under the
Roman yoke, attempted to raise their heads into liberty,
though many nations had now been subjected to the Roman
power, and Carthage had been overthrown. In this Italian
war the Romans were very often defeated, and two consuls
perished, besides other noble senators ; nevertheless this cala-
mity was not protracted over a long space of time, for the
fifth year put an end to it. But the second Punic war, lasting
for the space of eighteen years, and occasioning the greatest
disasters and calamities to the republic, wore out and well-
nigh consumed the strength of the Romans ; for in two battles
about seventy thousand Romans fell1 The first Punic war
was terminated after having been waged for three-and-twenty
years. The Mithridatic war was waged for forty years. And
that no one may think that in the early and much belauded
times of the Romans they were far braver and more able
to bring wars to a speedy termination, the Samnite war was
protracted for nearly fifty years ; and in this war the Romans
were so beaten that they were even put under the yoke. But
because they did not love glory for the sake of justice, but
seemed rather to have loved justice for the sake of glory,
they broke the peace and the treaty which had been concluded.
These things I mention, because many, ignorant of past things,
and some also dissimulating what they know, if in Christian
times they see any war protracted a little longer than they
expected, straightway make a fierce and insolent attack on
1 Of the Thrasymene Lake and Cannae.

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our religion, exclaiming that, but for it, the deities would have
been supplicated still, according to ancient rites ; and then, by
that bravery of the Romans, which, with the help of Mars and
Bellona, speedily brought to an end such great wars, this war
also would be speedily terminated. Let them, therefore, who
have read history recollect what long-continued wars, having
various .issues and entailing woful slaughter, were waged by
the ancient Romans, in accordance with the general truth
that the earth, like the tempestuous deep, is subject to agita-
tions from tempests — tempests of such evils, in various
degrees, — and let them sometimes confess what they do not
like to own, and not, by madly speaking against God, destroy
themselves and deceive the ignorant.

23. Concerning the war in which Badagaisus, king qf the Ooths, a worshipper
oj demons , was conquered in one day , with all his mighty forces.

Nevertheless they do not mention with thanksgiving what
God has very recently, and within our own memory, wonder-
fully and mercifully done, but as far as in them lies they
attempt, if possible, to bury it in universal oblivion. But
should we be silent about these things, we should be in like
manner ungrateful. When Radagaisus, king of the Goths,
having taken up his position very near to the city, with a vast
and savage army, was already close upon the Romans, he was
in one day so speedily and so thoroughly beaten, that, whilst
not even one Roman was wounded, much less slain, far more
than a hundred thousand of his army were prostrated, and he
himself and his sons, having been captured, were forthwith
put to death, suffering the punishment they deserved. For
had so impious a man, with so great and so impious a host,
entered the city, whom would he have spared ? what tombs
of the martyrs would he have respected ? in his treatment
of what person would he have manifested the fear of God ?
whose blood would he have refrained from shedding ? whose
chastity would he have wished to preserve inviolate ? But
how loud would they not have been in the praises of their
gods ! How insultingly they would have boasted, saying that
Radagaisus had' conquered, that he had been able to achieve
such great things, because he propitiated and won over the
gods by daily sacrifices, — a thing which the Christian religion

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did not allow the Komans to do ! For when he was approach-
ing to those places where he was overwhelmed at the nod of
the Supreme Majesty, as his fame was everywhere increasing,
it was being told us at Carthage that the pagans were believ-
ing, publishing, and boasting, that he, on account of the help
and protection of the gods friendly to him, because of the
sacrifices which he was said to be daily offering to them,
would certainly not be conquered by those who were not
performing such sacrifices to the Roman gods, and did not
even permit that they should be offered by any one. And
now these wretched men do not give thanks to God for His
great mercy, who, having determined to chastise the corrup-
tion of men, which was worthy of far heavier chastisement
than the corruption of the barbarians, tempered His indigna-
tion with such mildness as, in the first instance, to cause that
the king of the Goths should be conquered in a wonderful
manner, lest glory should accrue to demons, whom he was
known to be supplicating, and thus the minds of the weak
should be overthrown; and then, afterwards, to cause that*
when Rome was to be taken, it should be taken by those
barbarians who, contrary to any custom of all former wars,
protected, through reverence for the Christian religion, those
who .fled for refuge to the sacred places, and who so opposed
the demons themselves, and the rites of impious sacrifices,
that they seemed to be carrying on a far more terrible war
with them than with men. Thus did the true Lord and Gover-
nor of things both scourge the Romans mercifully, and, by the
marvellous defeat of the worshippers of demons, show that
those sacrifices were not necessary even for the safety of pre-
sent things ; so that, by those who do not obstinately hold out,
but prudently consider the matter, true religion may not be
deserted on account of the urgencies of the present time, but
may be more dung to in most confident expectation of eternal
life.

24. What was the happiness of the Christian emperors, and how far it was
true happiness.

For neither do we say that certain Christian emperors were
therefore happy because they ruled a long time, or, dying a
peaceful death, left their sons to succeed them in the empire.

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or subdued the enemies of the republic, or were able both to
guard against and to suppress the attempt of hostile citizens
rising against them. These and other gifts or comforts of this
sorrowful life even certain worshippers of demons have merited
to receive, who do not belong to the kingdom of God to which
these belong ; and this is to be traced to the mercy of God,
who would not have those who believe in Him desire such
things as the highest good. But we say that they are happy
if they rule justly ; if they are not lifted up amid the praises
of those who pay them sublime honours, and the obsequious-
ness of those who salute them with an excessive humility,
but remember that they are men ; if they make their power
the handmaid of His majesty by using it for the greatest pos-
sible extension of His worship; if they fear, love, worship
God ; if more than their own they love that kingdom in which
they are not afraid to have partners; if they are slow to
punish, ready to pardon; if they apply that punishment as
necessary to government and defence of the republic, and not
in order to gratify their own enmity; if they grant pardon,
not that iniquity may go unpunished, but with the hope that
the transgressor may amend his ways; if they compensate
with the lenity of mercy and the liberality of benevolence
for whatever severity they may be compelled to decree; if
their luxury is as much restrained as it might have been
unrestrained ; if they prefer to govern depraved desires rather
than any nation whatever ; and if they do all these things,
not through ardent desire of empty glory, but through love of
eternal felicity, not neglecting to offer to the true God, who
is their God, for their sins, the sacrifices of humility, contri-
tion, and prayer. Such Christian emperors, we say, are happy
in the present time by hope, and are destined to be so in the
enjoyment of the reality itself, when that which we wait for
shall have arrived.

25. Concerning the prosperity which Ood granted to the Christian emperor
Constantine.

For the good God, lest men, who believe that He is to be
worshipped with a view to eternal life, should think that no
one could attain to all this high estate, and to this terrestrial
dominion, unless he should be a worshipper of the demons, —

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supposing that these spirits have great power with respect to
such things, — for this reason He gave to the Emperor Con-
stantine, who was not a worshipper of demons, but of the
true God Himself, such fulness of earthly gifts as no one
would even dare wish for. To him also He granted the
honour of founding a city,1 a companion to the Roman empire,
the daughter, as it were, of Rome itself, but without any
temple or image of the demons. He reigned for a long period
as sole emperor, and unaided held and defended the whole
Roman world. In conducting and carrying on wars he was
most victorious ; in overthrowing tyrants he was most success-
ful He died at a great age, of sickness and old age, and left
his sons to succeed him in the empire.3 But again, lest any
emperor should become a Christian in order to merit the happi-
ness of Constantine, when every one should be a Christian
for the sake of eternal life, God took away Jovian far sooner
than Julian, and permitted that Gratian should be slain by
the sword of a tyrant. But in his case there was far more
mitigation of the calamity than in the case of the great
Pompey, for he could not be avenged by Cato, whom he had
left, as it were, heir to the civil war. But Gratian, though
pious minds require not such consolations, was avenged by
Theodosius, whom he had associated with himself in the
empire, though he had a little brother of his own, being more
desirous of a faithful alliance than of extensive power.

26. On the faith and piety of Theodosius Augustus .

And on this account, Theodosius not only preserved during
the lifetime of Gratian that fidelity which was due to him,
but also, after his death, he, like a true Christian, took his
little brother Valentinian under his protection, as joint em-
peror, after he had been expelled by Maximus, the murderer
of his father. He guarded him with paternal affection, though
he might without any difficulty have got rid of him, being
entirely destitute of all resources, had he been animated with
the desire of extensive empire, and not with the ambition of
being a benefactor. It was therefore a far greater pleasure to
him, when he had adopted the boy, and preserved to him his
1 Constantinople. * Constaatius, Constantine, and Constans.

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imperial dignity, to console him by his very humanity and
kindness. Afterwards, when that success was rendering
Maximus terrible, Theodosius, in the midst of his perplexing
anxieties, was not drawn away to follow the suggestions of a
sacrilegious and unlawful curiosity, but sent to John, whose
abode was in the desert of Egypt, — for he had learned that this
servant of God (whose fame was spreading abroad) was endowed
with the gift of prophecy, — and from him he received assurance
of victory. Immediately the slayer of the tyrant Maximus,
with the deepest feelings of compassion and respect, restored
the boy Valentinianus to his share in the empire from which
he had been driven. Valentinianus being soon after slain by
secret assassination, or by some other plot or accident, Theo-
dosius, having again received a response from the prophet,
and placing entire confidence in it, marched against the tyrant
Eugenius, who had been unlawfully elected to succeed that
emperor, and defeated his very powerful army, more by prayer
than by the sword. Some soldiers who were at the battle
reported to me that all the missiles they were throwing were
snatched from their hands by a vehement wind, which blew
from the direction of Theodosius’ army upon the enemy ; nor
did it only drive with greater velocity the darts which were
hurled against them, but also turned back upon their own
bodies the darts which they themselves were throwing. And
therefore the poet Claudian, although an alien from the name
of Christ, nevertheless says in his praises of him, “ 0 prince,
too much beloved by God, for thee ASolus pours armed tempests
from their caves ; for thee the air fights, and the winds with
one accord obey thy bugles.”1 But the victor, as he had
believed and predicted, overthrew the statues of Jupiter, which
had been, as it were, consecrated by I know not what kind
of rites against him, and set up in the Alps. And the
thunderbolts of these statues, which were made of gold, he
mirthfully and graciously presented to his couriers, who (as
the joy of the occasion permitted) were jocularly saying that
they would be most happy to be struck by such thunderbolts.
The sons of his own enemies, whose fathers had been slain
not so much by his orders as by the vehemence of war, having

1 Panegyr. de tertio Honor'll consulatu,

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fled for refuge to a church, though they were not yet Christians,
he was anxious, taking advantage of the occasion, to bring
over to Christianity, and tieated them with Christian love.
Nor did he deprive them of their property, but, besides allow-
ing them to retain it, bestowed on them additional honours.
He did not permit private animosities to affect the treat-
ment of any man after the war. He was not like Cinna,
and Marius, and Sylla, and other such men, who wished
not to finish civil wars even when they were finished, but
rather grieved that they had arisen at all, than wished that
when they were finished they should harm any one. Amid
all these events, from the very commencement of his reign, lie
did not cease to help the troubled church against the impious
by most just and merciful laws, which the heretical Valens,
favouring the Arians, had vehemently afflicted. Indeed, he
rejoiced more to be a member of this church than he did
to be a king upon the earth. The idols of the Gentiles he
everywhere ordered to be overthrown, understanding well that
not even terrestrial gifts are placed in the power of demons,
but in that of the true God. And what could be more ad-
mirable than his religious humility, when, compelled by the
urgency of certain of his intimates, he avenged the grievous
crime of the Thessalonians, which at the prayer of the bishops
he had promised to pardon, and, being laid hold of by the
/ discipline of the church, did penance in such a way that the
sight of his imperial loftiness prostrated made the people who
were interceding for him weep more than the consciousness of
offence had made them fear it when enraged? These and
other similar good works, which it would be long to tell, he
carried with him from this world of time, where the greatest
human nobility and loftiness are but vapour. Of these works
the reward is eternal happiness, of which God is the giver,
though only to those who are sincerely pious. But all other
blessings and privileges of this life, as the world itself, light,
air, earth, water, fruits, and the soul of man himself, his body,
senses, mind, life, He lavishes on good and bad alike. And
among these blessings is also to be reckoned the possession of
an empire, whose extent He regulates according to the re-
quirements of His providential government at various times.
Whence, I see, we must now answer those who, being con-

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futed and convicted by the most manifest proofs, by which it
is shown that for obtaining these terrestrial things, which are
all the foolish desire to have, that multitude of false gods is
of no use, attempt to assert that the gods are to be worshipped
with a view to the interest, not of the present life, but of that
which is to come after death. For as to those who, for the
sake, of the friendship of this world, are willing to worship
vanities, and do not grieve that they are left to their puerile
understandings, I think they have been sufficiently answered
in these five books ; of which books, when I had published
the first three, and they had begun to come into the hands of
many, I heard that certain persons were preparing against
them an answer of some kind or other in writing. Then it
was told me that they had already written their answer, but
were waiting a time when they could publish it without
danger. Such persons I would advise not to desire what
cannot be of any advantage to them ; for it is very easy for
a man to seem to himself to have answered arguments, when
he has only been unwilling to be silent. For what is more
loquacious than vanity ? And though it be able, if it like, to
shout more loudly than the truth, it is not, for all that, more
powerful than the truth. But let men consider diligently all
the things that we have said, and if, perchance, judging with-
out party spirit, they shall clearly perceive that they are such
things as may rather be shaken than tom up by their most
impudent garrulity, and, as it were, satirical and mimic levity,
let them restrain their absurdities, and let them choose rather
to be corrected by the wise than to be lauded by the foolish.
For if they are waiting an opportunity, not for liberty to speak
the truth, but for licence to revile, may not that befall them
which Tully says concerning some one, “ Oh, wretched man I
who was at liberty to sin?”1 Wherefore, whoever he be
who deems himself happy because of licence to revile, he
would be far happier if that were not allowed him at all ; for
he might all the while, laying aside empty boast, be contra-
dicting those to whose views he is opposed by way of free
consultation with them, and be listening, as it becomes him,
honourably, gravely, candidly, to all that can be adduced by
those whom he consults by friendly disputation.

1 Tuac. Quaest. v. 19.

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BOOK SIXTH.

ARGUMENT.

HITHERTO THE ARGUMENT HA8 BEEN CONDUCTED AOAIN8T THOSE WHO BELIEVE
THAT THE GODS ARE TO BE WORSHIPPED FOR THE SAKE OF TEMPORAL AD-
VANTAGES, NOW IT 18 DIRECTED AGAINST TH08E WHO BELIEVE THAT THEY
ARE TO BE WORSHIPPED FOR THE SAKE OF ETERNAL LIFE. AUGU8TINE
DEVOTE8 THE FIVE FOLLOWING BOOKS TO THE CONFUTATION OF THIS LATTER
BELIEF, AND FIRST OF ALL SHOW8 HOW MEAN AN OPINION OF THE GODS
WAS HELD BY VARRO HIMSELF, THE MOST ESTEEMED WRITER ON HEATHEN
THEOLOGY. OF THIS THEOLOGY AUGUSTINE ADOPTS VARRO'S DIVISION INTO
THREE KINDS, MYTHICAL, NATURAL, AND CIVIL ; AND AT ONCE DEMON-
STRATES THAT NEITHER THE MYTHICAL NOR THE CIVIL CAN CONTRIBUTE
ANYTHING TO THE HAPPINES8 OF THE FUTURE LIFE.

PREFACE.

IN the five former books, I think I have sufficiently dis-
puted against those who believe that the many false gods,
which the Christian truth shows to be useless images, or un-
clean spirits and pernicious demons, or certainly creatures, not
the Creator, are to be worshipped for the advantage of this
mortal life, and of terrestrial affairs, with that rite and service
which the Greeks call T^arpela, and which is due to the one
true God. And who does not know that, in the face of
excessive stupidity and obstinacy, neither these five nor any
other number of books whatsoever could be enough, when it is
esteemed the glory of vanity to yield to no amount of strength
on the side of truth, — certainly to his destruction over whom
so heinous a vice tyrannizes ? For, notwithstanding all the
assiduity of the physician who attempts to effect a cure, the
disease remains unconquered, not through any fault of his, but
because of the incurableness of the sick man. But those who
thoroughly weigh the things which they read, having under-
stood and considered them, without any, or with no great and
excessive degree of that obstinacy which belongs to a long-
cherished error, will more readily judge that, in the five
books already finished, we have done more than the neces-

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sity of the question demanded, than that we have given it less
discussion than it required. And they cannot have doubted
but that all the hatred which the ignorant attempt to bring
upon the Christian religion on account of the disasters of this
life, and the destruction and change which befall terrestrial
things, whilst the learned do not merely dissimulate, but en-
courage that hatred, contrary to their own consciences, being
possessed by a mad impiety; — they cannot have doubted, I say,
but that this hatred is devoid of right reflection and reason,
and full of most light temerity, and most pernicious animosity.

1. Of thow who maintain that they worship the gods not for the sake of
temporal, but eternal advantages.

Now, as, in the next place (as the promised order demands),
those are to be refuted and taught who contend that the gods
of the nations, which the Christian truth destroys, are to be
worshipped not on account of this life, but on account of that
which is to be after death, I shall do well to commence my
disputation with the truthful oracle of the holy psalm, “ Blessed
is the man whose hope is the Lord God, and who respecteth
not vanities and lying follies.”1 Nevertheless, in all vanities
and lying follies the philosophers are to be listened to with
far more toleration, who have repudiated those opinions and
errors of the people; for the people set up images to the
deitties, and either feigned concerning those whom they call
immortal gods many false and unworthy things, or believed
them, already feigned, and, when believed, mixed them up
with their worship and sacred rites.

With those men who, though not by free avowal of their
convictions, do still testify that they disapprove of those things
by their muttering disapprobation during disputations on the
subject, it may not be very far amiss to discuss the following
question: Whether, for the sake of the life which is to be
after death, we ought to worship, not the one God, who made
all creatures spiritual and corporeal, but those many gods who,
as some of these philosophers hold, were made by that one God,
and placed by Him in their respective sublime spheres, and are
therefore considered more excellent and more noble than all the
others ?3 But who will assert that it must be affirmed and
1 Ps. xL 4. * Plato, in the Timceus.

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contended that those gods, certain of whom I have mentioned
in the fourth book,1 to whom are distributed, each to each, the
charges of minute things, do bestow eternal life ? But will those
most skilled and most acute men, who glory in having written
for the great benefit of men, to teach on what account each god
is to be worshipped, and what is to be sought from each, lest
with most disgraceful absurdity, such as a mimic is wont for
the sake of merriment to exhibit* water should be sought from
Liber, wine from the Lymphs, — will those men indeed affirm
to any man supplicating the immortal gods, that when he
shall have asked wine from the Lymphs, and they shall have
answered him, “ We have water, seek wine from liber,” he
may rightly say, “If ye have ‘not wine, at least give me
eternal life ?” What more monstrous than this absurdity ?
Will not these Lymphs, — for they are wont to be very easily
made laugh,* — laughing loudly (if they do not attempt to
deceive like demons), answer the suppliant, “ 0 man, dost
thou think that we have life (vttam) in our power, who thou
hearest have not even the vine ( vitem ) /” It is therefore most
impudent folly to seek and hope for eternal life from such
gods as are asserted so to preside over the separate minute
concernments of this most sorrowful and short life, and what-
ever is useful for supporting and propping it, as that if any-
thing which is under the care and power of one be sought
from another, it is so incongruous and absurd that it appears
very like to mimic drollery, — which, when it is done by
mimics knowing what they are doing, is deservedly laughed
at in the theatre, but when it is done by foolish persons, who
do not know better, is more deservedly ridiculed in the world.
Wherefore, as concerns those gods which the states have
established, it has been cleverly invented and handed down to
memory by learned men, what god or goddess is to be sup-
plicated in relation to every particular thing, — what, for
instance, is to be sought from Liber, what from the Lymphs,
what from Vulcan, and so of all the rest, some of whom I
have mentioned in the fourth book, and some I have thought
right to omit. Further, if it is an error to seek wine from
Ceres, bread from Liber, water from Vulcan, fire from the
1 Ch. xi. and xxi. * See Yirgil, Ec. iii. 9.

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Lymphs, how much greater absurdity ought it to be thought,
if supplication be made to any one of these for eternal life ?

Wherefore, if, when we were inquiring what gods or god-
desses are to be believed to be able to confer earthly king-
doms upon men, all things having been discussed, it was shown
to be very far from the truth to think that even terrestrial
kingdoms are established by any of those many false deities,
is it not most insane impiety to believe that eternal life,
which is, without any doubt or comparison, to be preferred
to all terrestrial kingdoms, can be given to any one by any of
these gods ? For the reason why such gods seemed to us not
to be able to give even an earthly kingdom, was not because
they are very great and exalted, whilst that is something small
and abject* which they, in their so great sublimity, would
not condescend to care for, but because, however deservedly
any one may, in consideration of human frailty, despise the
falling pinnacles of an earthly kingdom, these gods have pre-
sented such an appearance as to seem most unworthy to have
the granting and preserving of even those entrusted to them ;
and consequently, if (as we have taught in the two last books
of our work, where this matter is treated of) no god out of all
that crowd, either belonging to, as it were, the plebeian, or to
the noble gods, is fit to give mortal kingdoms to mortals, how
much less is he able to make immortals of mortals ?

And more than this, if, according to the opinion of those
with whom we are now arguing, the gods are to be worshipped,
not on account of the present life, but of that which is to be
after death, then, certainly, they are not to be worshipped on
account of those particular things which are distributed and
portioned out (not by any law of rational truth, but by mere
vain conjecture) to the power of such gods, as they believe they
ought to be worshipped, who contend that their worship is neces-
sary for all the desirable things of this mortal life, against whom
I have disputed sufficiently, as far as I was able, in the five pre-
ceding books. These things being so, if the age itself of those
who worshipped the goddess Juventas should be characterized
by remarkable vigour, whilst her despisers should either die
within the years of youth, or should, during that period, grow
cold as with the torpor of old age ; if bearded Fortuna should

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cover the cheeks of her worshippers more handsomely and more
gracefully than all others, whilst we should see those by whom
she was despised either altogether beardless or ill-bearded;
even then we should most rightly say, that thus far these
several gods had power, limited in some way by their functions,
and that, consequently, neither ought eternal life to be sought
from Juventas, who could not give a beard, nor ought any
good thing after this life to be expected from Fortuna Barbata,
who has no power even in this life to give the age itself at
which the beard grows. But now, when their worship is
necessary not even on account of those very things which
they think are subjected to their power, — for many worshippers
of the goddess Juventas have not been at all vigorous at that
age, and many who do not worship her rejoice in youthful
strength ; and also many suppliants of Fortuna Barbata have
either not been able to attain to any beard at all, not even an
ugly one, although they who adore her in order to obtain a
beard are ridiculed by her bearded despisers, — is the human
heart really so foolish as to believe that that worship of the
gods, which it acknowledges to be vain and ridiculous with
respect to those very temporal and swiftly passing gifts, over
each of which one of these gods is said to preside, is fruitful
in results with respect to eternal life ? And that they are able
to give eternal life has not been affirmed even by those who,
that they might be worshipped by the silly populace, dis-
tributed in minute division among them these temporal
occupations, that none of them might sit idle ; for they had
supposed the existence of an exceedingly great number.

2. What we are to believe that Varro thought concerning the gods of the nations ,
whose various kinds and soared rites he has shown to be such that he
would have acted more reverently towards them had he been altogether
silent concerning them .

Who has investigated those things more carefully than
Marcus Varro ? Who has discovered them more learnedly ?
Who has considered them more attentively ? Who has dis-
tinguished them more acutely ? Who has written about them
more diligently and more fully? — who, though he is less
pleasing in his eloquence, is nevertheless so full of instruc-
tion and wisdom, that in all the erudition which we call

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secular, but they liberal, he will teach the student of things
as much as Cicero delights the student of words. And even
Tully himself renders him such testimony, as to say in his
Academic books that he had held that disputation which is
there carried on with Marcus Varro, " a man,” he adds, " un-
questionably the acutest of all men, and, without any doubt,
the most leamed.,,1 He does not say the most eloquent or
the most fluent, for in reality he was very deficient in this
faculty, but he says, "of all men the most acute.” And
in those books, — that is, the Academic, — where he con-
tends that all things are to be doubted, he adds of him,

" without any doubt the most learned.” In truth, he was so
certain concerning this thing, that he laid aside that doubt
which he is wont to have recourse to in all things, as if,
when about to dispute in favour of the doubt of the Aca-
demics, he had, with respect to this one thing, forgotten ,
that he was an Academic. But in the first book, when he
extols the literary works of the same Varro, he says, "Us
straying and wandering in our own city like strangers, thy
books, as it were, brought home, that at length we might
come to know of who we were and where we were. Thou
hast opened up to us the age of the country, the distribution
of seasons, the laws of sacred things, and of the priests ; thou
hast opened up to us domestic and public discipline ; thou
hast pointed out to us the proper places for religious cere-
monies, and hast informed us concerning sacred places. Thou
hast shown us the names, kinds, offices, causes of all divine
and human things.”*

This man, then, of so distinguished and excellent acquire-
ments, and, as Terentian briefly says of him in a most elegant
verse,

** Varro, a man universally informed,”*

who read so much that we wonder when he had time to write,
wrote so much that we can scarcely believe any one could have
read it all, — this man, I say, so great in talent, so great in

1 Of the four books De Acad., dedicated to Varro, only a part of the first is
extant.

* Cicero, De Quasi. Acad l i. 3.

3 In his book De Metric, chapter on phalsecian verses.

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learning, had he been an opposer and destroyer of the so-called
divine things of which he wrote, and had he said that they
pertained to superstition rather than to religion, might per-
haps, even in that case, not have written so many things
which are ridiculous, contemptible, detestable. But when he
so worshipped these same gods, and so vindicated their
worship, as to say, in that same literary work of his, that
he was afraid lest they should perish, not by an assault
by enemies, but by the negligence of the citizens, and that
from this ignominy they are being delivered by him, and are
being laid up and preserved in the memory of the good by
means of such books, with a zeal far more beneficial than that
through which Metellus is declared to have rescued the sacred
things of Vesta from the flames, and dineas to have rescued
the Penates from the burning of Troy ; and when he, never-
theless, gives forth such things to be read by succeeding ages
as are deservedly judged by wise and unwise to be unfit to
be read, and to be most hostile to the truth of religion ; what
ought we to think but that a most acute and learned man, —
not, however, made free by the Holy Spirit, — was overpowered
by the custom and laws of his state, and, not being able to be
silent about those things by which he was influenced, spoke
of them under pretence of commending religion ?

8. Varro'8 distribution of his book which he composed concerning the antiquities
of human and divine things.

He wrote forty-one books of antiquities. These he divided
into human and divine things. Twenty-five he devoted to
human things, sixteen to divine things ; following this plan in
that division, — namely, to give six books to each of the four
divisions of human things. For he directs his attention to
these considerations : who perform, where they perform, when
they perform, what they perform. Therefore in the first six
books he wrote concerning men ; in the second six, concerning
places ; in the third six, concerning times ; in the fourth and
last six, concerning things. Four times six, however, make
only twenty-four. But he placed at the head of them one
separate work, which spoke of all these things conjointly.

In divine things, the same order he preserved throughout,
as far as concerns those things which are performed to the

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gods. For sacred things are performed by men in places and
times. These four things I have mentioned he embraced in
twelve books, allotting three to each. For he wrote the first
three concerning men, the following three concerning places,
the third three concerning times, and the fourth three concern-
ing sacred rites, — showing who should perform, where they
should perform, when they should perform, what they should
perform, with most subtle distinction. But because it was
necessary to say — and that especially was expected — to whom
they should perform sacred rites, he wrote concerning the gods
themselves the last three books ; and these five times three
made fifteen. But they are in all, as we have said, sixteen.
For he put also at the beginning of these one distinct book,
speaking by way of introduction of all which follows ; which
being finished, he proceeded to subdiyide the first three in
that fivefold distribution which pertain to men, making the
first concerning high priests, the second concerning augurs,
the third concerning the fifteen men presiding over the sacred
ceremonies.1 The second three he made concerning places,
speaking in one of them concerning their chapels, in the
second concerning their temples, and in the third concerning
religious places. The next three which follow these, and per-
tain to times, — that is, to festival days, — he distributed so as
to make one concerning holidays, the other concerning the
circus games, , and the third concerning scenic plays. Of the
fourth three, pertaining to sacred things, he devoted one to
consecrations, another to private, the last to public, sacred
rites. In the three which remain, the gods themselves follow
this pompous train, as it were, for whom all this culture has
been expended. In the first book are the certain gods, in the
second the uncertain, in the third, and last of all, the chief
and select gods.

i. That from the disputation of Varro , it follows that the worshippers of the
gods regard human things as more ancient than divine things.

In this whole series of most beautiful and most subtle dis-

1 Tarquin the Proud, haying bought the hooka of the sibyl, appointed two
men to preserve and interpret them (Dionys. Halic. Antiq. iv. 62). These were
afterwards increased to ten, while the plebeians were contending for larger privi-
leges ; and subsequently five more were added.

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tributions and distinctions, it will most easily appear evident
from the things we have said already, and from what is to be
said hereafter, to any man who is not, in the obstinacy of his
heart, an enemy to himself, that it is vain to seek and to hope
for, and even most impudent to wish for eternal life. For
these institutions are either the work of men or of demons, —
not of those whom they call good demons, but, to speak more
plainly, of unclean, and, without controversy, malign spirits,
who with wonderful slyness and secretness suggest to the
thoughts of the impious, and sometimes openly present to
their understandings, noxious opinions, by which the human
mind grows more and more foolish, and becomes unable to
adapt itself to and abide in the immutable and eternal truth,
and seek to confirm these opinions by every kind of fallacious
attestation in their power. This very same Yarro testifies
that he wrote first concerning human things, but afterwards
concerning divine things, because the states existed first, and
afterward these things were instituted by them. But the
true religion was not instituted by any earthly state, but
plainly it established the celestial city. It, however, is
inspired and taught by the true God, the giver of eternal life
to His true worshippers.

The following is the reason Varro gives when he confesses
that he had written first concerning human things, and after-
wards of divine things, because these divine things were in-
stituted by men: — “As the painter is before the painted
tablet, the mason before the edifice, so states are before those
things which are instituted by states.” But he says that he
would have written first concerning the gods, afterwards con-
cerning men, if he had been writing concerning the whole
nature of the gods, — as if he were really writing concerning
some portion of, and not all, the nature of the gods ; or as if,
indeed, some portion of, though not all, the nature of the gods
ought not to be put before that of men. How, then, comes it
that in those three last books, when he is diligently explain-
ing the certain, uncertain, and select gods, he seems to pass
over no portion of the nature of the gods ? Why, then, does
he say, “ If we had been writing on the whole nature of the
gods, we would first have finished the divine things before we

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touched the human?” For he either writes concerning the
whole nature of the gods, or concerning some portion of it,
or concerning no part of it at all. If concerning it all, it is
certainly to be put before human things ; if concerning some
part of it, why should it not, from the very nature of the case,
precede human things ? Is not even some part of the gods
to be preferred to the whole of humanity ? But if it is too
much to prefer a part of the divine to all human things, that
part is certainly worthy to be preferred to the Romans at
least For he writes the books concerning human things, not
with reference to the whole world, but only to Rome ; which
books he says he had properly placed, in the order of writing,
before the books on divine things, like a painter before the
painted tablet, or a mason before the building, most openly
confessing that, as a picture or a structure, even these divine
things were instituted by men. There remains only the third
supposition, that he is to be understood to have written con-
cerning no divine nature, but that he did not wish to say
this openly, but left it to the intelligent to infer ; for when
one says “ not all,” usage understands that to mean “ some,”
but it may be understood as meaning none, because that which
is none is neither all nor some. In fact, as he himself says,
if he had been writing concerning all the nature of the gods,
its due place would have been before human things in the
order of writing. But, as the truth declares, even though
Varro is silent, the divine nature should have taken precedence
of Roman things, though it were not all, but only some . But
it is properly put after, therefore it is none. His arrangement,
therefore, was due, not to a desire to give human things priority
to divine things, but to his unwillingness to prefer false things
to true. For in what he wrote on human things, he followed
the history of affairs ; but in what he wrote concerning those
things which they call divine, what else did he follow but
mere conjectures about vain things ? This, doubtless, is what,
in a subtle manner, he wished to signify ; not only writing
concerning divine things after the human, but even giving
a reason why he did so ; for if he had suppressed this, some,
perchance, would have defended his doing so in one way, and
some in another. But in that very reason he has rendered,

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he has left nothing for men to conjecture at will, and has suf-
ficiently proved that he preferred men to the institutions of
men, not the nature of men to the nature of the gods. Thus
he confessed that, in writing the books concerning divine
things, he did not write concerning the truth which belongs
to nature, but the falseness which belongs to error; which
he has elsewhere expressed more openly (as I have mentioned
in the fourth book1), saying that, had he been founding a new
city himself, he would have written according to the order of
nature ; but as he had only found an old one, he could not
but follow its custom.

5. Concerning the three lands of theology according to Vdrro , namely, one
fabulous, the other natural , the third civil.

Now what are we to say of this proposition of his, namely,
that there are three kinds of theology, that is, of the account
which is given of the gods ; and of these, the one is called
mythical, the other physical, and the third civil ? Did the
Latin usage permit, we should call the kind which he has
placed first in order fabular? but let us call it fabulous? for
mythical is derived from the Greek fiitOos, a fable ; but that
the second should be called nalwral, the usage of speech now
admits ; the third he himself has designated in Latin, calling
it civil} Then he says, “ they call that kind mythical which
the poets chiefly use; physical , that which the philosophers
use ; civil, that which the people use. As to the first I have
mentioned,” says he, “in it are many fictions, which are con-
trary to the dignity and nature of the immortals. For we
find in it that one god has been bom from the head, another
from the thigh, another from drops of blood; also, in this
we find that gods have stolen, committed adultery, served
men ; in a word, in this all manner of things are attributed
to the gods, such as may befall, not merely any man, but
even the most contemptible man.” He certainly, where
he could, where he dared, where he thought he could do
it with impunity, has manifested, without any of the hazi-
ness of ambiguity, how great injury was done to the nature
of the gods by lying fables; for he was speaking, not con-
cerning natural theology, not concerning civil, but concerning
1 Ch. 31. 1 Fabuiare . 1 Fabulosum. 4 Civile.

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fabulous theology, , which he thought he could freely find fault
with.

Let us see, now, what he says concerning the second kind.
“ The second kind which I have explained,” he says, “ is that
concerning which philosophers have left many books, in which
they treat such questions as these : what gods there are, where
they are, of what kind and character they are, since what time
they have existed, or if they have existed from eternity;
whether they are of fire, as Heraclitus believes ; or of number,
as Pythagoras ; or of atoms, as Epicurus says ; and other such
things, which men’s ears can more easily hear inside the walls
of a school than outside in the Forum.” He finds fault with
nothing in this kind of theology which they call physical, and
which belongs to philosophers, except that he has related their
controversies among themselves, through which there has arisen
a multitude of dissentient sects. Nevertheless he has removed
this kind from the Forum, that is, from the populace, but he
has shut it up in schools. But that first kind, most false and
most base, he has not removed from the citizens. Oh, the reli-
gious ears of the people, and among them even those of the
Bomans, that are not able to bear what the philosophers dispute
concerning the gods! But when the poets sing and stage-
players act such things as are derogatory to the dignity and
the nature of the immortals, such as may befall not a man
merely, but the most contemptible man, they not only bear,
but willingly listen to. Nor is this all, but they even con-
sider that these things please the gods, and that they are
propitiated by them.

But some one may say, Let us distinguish these two kinds
of theology, the mythical and the physical, — that is, the
fabulous and the natural, — from this civil kind about which
we are now speaking. Anticipating this, he himself has dis-
tinguished them. Let us see now how he explains the civil
theology itsel£ I see, indeed, why it should be distinguished
as fabulous, even because it is false, because it is base, because
it is unworthy. But to wish to distinguish the natural from
the civil, what else is that but to confess that the civil itself
is false ? For if that be natural, what fault has it that it
should be excluded ? And il this which is called civil be not

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natural, what merit has it that it should be admitted ? This,
in truth, is the cause why he wrote first concerning human
things, and afterwards concerning divine things; since in
divine things he did not follow nature, but the institution
of men. Let us look at this civil theology of his. “The
third kind,” says he, “is that which citizens in cities, and
especially the priests, ought to know and to administer. From
it is to be known what god each one may suitably worship,
what sacred rites and sacrifices each one may suitably per-
form.” Let us still attend to what follows. “ The first theo-
logy,” he says, “ is especially adapted to the theatre, the second
to the world, the third to the city.” Who does not see to
which he gives the palm? Certainly to the second, which
he said above is that of the philosophers. For he testifies
that this pertains to the world, than which they think there
is nothing better. But those two theologies, the first and the
third, — to wit, those of the theatre and of the city, — has he
distinguished them or united them? For although we see
that the city is in the world, we do not see that it follows
that any things belonging to the city pertain to the world.
For it is possible that such things may be worshipped and
believed in the city, according to false opinions, as have no
existence either in the world or out of it. But where is the
theatre but in the city ? Who instituted the theatre but the
state ? For what purpose did it constitute it but for scenic
plays ? And to what class of things do scenic plays belong
but to those divine things concerning which these books of
Yarro’s are written with so much ability ?

6. Concerning the mythic , that is, the fabulous, theology, and the civil,
against Varro .

0 Marcus Varro! thou art the most acute, and without
doubt the most learned, but still a man, not God, — now lifted
up by the Spirit of God to see and to announce divine things,
thou seest, indeed, that divine things are to be separated from
human trifles and lies, but thou fearest to offend those most
corrupt opinions of the populace, and their customs in public
superstitions, which thou thyself, when thou considerest them
on all sides, perceives^ and all your literature loudly pro-
nounces to be abhorrent from the nature of the gods, even

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of such gods as the frailty of the human mind supposes to
exist in the elements of this world. What can the most
excellent human talent do here? What can human learn-
ing, though manifold, avail thee in this perplexity ? Thou
desirest to worship the natural gods; thou art compelled to
worship the civiL Thou hast found some of the gods to be
fabulous, on whom thou vomitest forth very freely what thou
thinkest, and, whether thou wiliest or not, thou wettest there-
with even the civil gods. Thou sayest, forsooth, that the
fabulous are adapted to the theatre, the natural to the world,
and the civil to the city ; though the world is a divine work,
but cities and theatres are the works of men, and though the
gods who are laughed at in the theatre are not other than
those who are adored in the temples ; and ye do not exhibit
games in honour of other gods than those to whom ye im-
molate victims. How much more freely and more subtly
wouldst thou have decided these hadst thou said that some
gods are natural, others established by men ; and concerning
those who have been so established, the literature of the poets
gives one account, and that of the priests another, — both of
which are, nevertheless, so friendly the one to the other,
through fellowship in falsehood, that they are both pleasing
to the demons, to whom the doctrine of the truth is hostile.

That theology, therefore, which they call natural, being
put aside for a moment, as it is afterwards to be discussed,
we ask if any one is really content to seek a hope for
eternal life from poetical, theatrical, scenic gods? Perish
the thought! The true God avert so wild and sacrilegious
a madness! What, is eternal life to be asked from those
gods whom these things pleased, and whom these things pro-
pitiate, in which their own crimes are represented ? No one,
as I think, has arrived at such a pitch of headlong and
furious impiety. So then, neither by the fabulous nor by
the civil theology does any one obtain eternal life. For the
one sows base things concerning the gods by feigning them,
the other reaps by cherishing them ; the one scatters lies, the
other gathers them together ; the one pursues divine things
with false crimes, the other incorporates among divine things
the plays which are made up of these crimes ; the one sounds

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abroad in human songs impious fictions concerning the gods,
the other consecrates these for the festivities of the gods
themselves; the one sings the misdeeds and crimes of the
gods, the other loves them ; the one gives forth or feigns, the
other either attests the true or delights in the false. Both
are base ; both are damnable. But the one wliich is theatrical
teaches public abomination, and that one which is of the city
adorns itself with that abomination. Shall eternal life be
hoped for from these, by which this short and temporal life
is polluted ? Does the society of wicked men pollute our life
if they insinuate themselves into our affections, and win our
assent ? and does not the society of demons pollute the life,
who are worshipped with their own crimes? — if with true
crimes, how wicked the demons ! if with false, how wicked
the worship!

When we say these things, it may perchance seem to some
one who is very ignorant of these matters that only those
things concerning the gods which are sung in the songs of
the poets and acted on the stage are unworthy of the divine
majesty, and ridiculous, and too detestable to be celebrated,
whilst those sacred things which not stage-players but priests
perform are pure and free from all unseemliness. Had this
been so, never would any one have thought that these theatri-
cal abominations should be celebrated in their honour, never
would the gods themselves have ordered them to be performed
to them. But men are in nowise ashamed to perform these
things in the theatres, because similar things are carried on
in the temples. In short, when the fore-mentioned author
attempted to distinguish the civil theology from the fabulous
and natural, as a sort of third and distinct kind, he wished it
to be understood to be rather tempered by both than separated
from either. For he says that those things which the poets
write are less than the people ought to follow, whilst what
the philosophers say is more than it is expedient for the people
to pry into. “ Which,” says he, “ differ in such a way, that
nevertheless not a few things from both of them have been
taken to the account of the civil theology ; wherefore we will
indicate what the civil theology has in common with that of
the poet, though it ought to be more closely connected with

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BOOK VI.] THE FABULOUS AND CIVIL THEOLOGIES.

the theology of philosophers.” Civil theology is therefore not
quite disconnected from that of the poets. Nevertheless, in
another place, concerning the generations of the gods, he says
that the people are more inclined toward the poets than toward
the physical theologists. For in this place he said what ought
to be done ; in that other place, what was really dona He
said that the latter had written for the sake of utility, but the
poets for the sake of amusement. And hence the things from
the poets’ writings, which the people ought not to follow, are
the crimes of the gods ; which, nevertheless, amuse both the
people and the gods. For, for amusement’s sake, he says, the
poets write, and not for that of utility ; nevertheless they write
such things as the gods will desire, and the people perform.

7. Concerning (he likeness and agreement of the Jabulous and civil theologies.

That theology, therefore, which is fabulous, theatrical, scenic,
and full of all baseness and unseemliness, is taken up into
the civil theology; and part of that theology, which in its
totality is deservedly judged to be worthy of reprobation and
rejection, is pronounced worthy to be cultivated and observed ;
— not at all an incongruous part, as I have undertaken to
show, and one which, being alien to the whole body, was
unsuitably attached to and suspended from it, but a part
entirely congruous with, and most harmoniously fitted to
the rest, as a member of the same body. For what else
do those images, forms, ages, sexes, characteristics of the
gods show ? If the poets have Jupiter with a beard, and
Mercury beardless, have not the priests the same? Is the
Priapus of the priests less obscene than the Priapus of the
players ? Does he receive the adoration of worshippers in a
different form from that in which he moves about the stage
for the amusement of spectators ? Is not Saturn old and
Apollo young in the shrines where their images stand, as well
as when represented by actors’ masks ? Why are Forculus,
who presides over doors, and Limentinus, who presides over
thresholds and lintels, male gods, and Cardea between them
feminine, who presides over hinges ? Are not those things
found in books on divine things, which grave poets have
deemed unworthy of their verses ? Does the Diana of the

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theatre carry arms, whilst the Diana of the city is simply a
virgin ? Is the stage Apollo a lyrist, but the Delphic Apollo
ignorant of this art ? But these things are decent compared
with the more shameful things. What was thought of Jupiter
himself by those who placed his wet nurse in the Capitol ?
Did they not bear witness to Euhemerus, who, not with the
garrulity of a fable-teller, but with the gravity of an historian
who had diligently investigated the matter, wrote that all such
gods had been men and mortals ? And they who appointed
the Epulones as parasites at the table of Jupiter, what else did
they wish for but mimic sacred rites ? For if any mimic had
said that parasites of Jupiter were made use of at his table,
he would assuredly have appeared to be seeking to call forth
laughter. Varro said it, — not when he was mocking, but when
he was commending the gods did he say it His books on
divine, not on human, things testify that he wrote this, —
not where he set forth the scenic games, but where he ex-
plained the Capitoline laws. In a word, he is conquered, and
confesses that, as they made the gods with a human form, so
they believed that they are delighted with human pleasures.

For also malign spirits were not so wanting to their own
business as not to confirm noxious opinions in the minds of
men by converting them into sport Whence also is that
story about the sacristan of Hercules, which says that, having
nothing to do, he took to playing at dice as a pastime, throw-
ing them alternately with the one hand for Hercules, with the
other for himself, with this understanding, that if he should
win, he should from the funds of the temple prepare himself
a supper, and hire a mistress; but if Hercules should win
the game, he himself should, at his own expense, provide the
same for the pleasure of Hercules. Then, when he had been
beaten by himself, as though by Hercules, he gave to the god
Hercules the supper he owed him, and also the most noble
harlot Larentina. But she, having fallen asleep in the temple,
dreamed that Hercules had had intercourse with her, and had
said to her that she would find her payment with the youth
whom she should first meet on leaving the temple, and that
she was to believe this to be paid to her by Hercules. And
so the first youth that met her on going out was the wealthy

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Tarutius, who kept her a long time, and when he died left her
his heir. She, having obtained a most ample fortune, that she
should not seem ungrateful for the divine hire, in her turn
made the Koman people her heir, which she thought to be
most acceptable to the deities ; and, having disappeared, the
will was found. By which meritorious conduct they say that
she gained divine honours.

Now had these things been feigned by the poets and acted
by the mimics, they would without any doubt have been said
to pertain to the fabulous theology, and would have been judged
worthy to be separated from the dignity of the civil theology.
But when these shameful things, — not of the poets, but of the
people ; not of the mimics, but of the sacred things ; not of
the theatres, but of the temples, that is, not of the fabulous,
but of the civil theology, — are reported by so great an author,
not in vain do the actors represent with theatrical art the
baseness of the gods, which is so great ; but surely in vain do
the priests attempt, by rites called sacred, to represent their
nobleness of character, which has no existence. There are
sacred rites of Juno ; and these are celebrated in her beloved
island, Samos, where she was given in marriage to Jupiter.
There are sacred rites of Ceres, in which Proserpine is sought
for, having been carried off by Pluto. There are sacred rites
of Venus, in which, her beloved Adonis being slain by a boar's
tooth, the lovely youth is lamented. There are sacred rites of
the mother of the gods, in which the beautiful youth Atys,
loved by her, and castrated by her through a woman’s jealousy,
is deplored by men who have suffered the like calamity, whom
they call Galli. Since, then, these things are more unseemly
than all scenic abomination, why is it that they strive to
separate, as it were, the fabulous fictions of the poet concern-
ing the gods, as, forsooth, pertaining to the theatre, from the
civil theology which they wish to belong to the city, as though
they were separating from noble and worthy things, things un-
worthy and base ? Wherefore there is more reason to thank
the stage-actors, who have spared the eyes of men, and have
not laid bare by theatrical exhibition all the things which are
hid by the walls of the temples. What good is to be thought
of their sacred rites which are concealed in darkness, when

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those which are brought forth into the light are so detestable ?
And certainly they themselves have seen what they transact
in secret through the agency of mutilated and effeminate men.
Yet they have not been able to conceal those same men miser-
ably and vilely enervated and corrupted. Let them persuade
whom they can that they transant anything holy through such
men, who, they cannot deny, are numbered, and live among
their sacred things. We know not what they transact, but
we know through whom they transact; for we know what
things are transacted on the stage, where never, even in a
chorus of harlots, hath one who is mutilated or an effeminate
appeared. And, nevertheless, even these things are acted by
vile and infamous characters ; for, indeed, they ought not to
be acted by men of good character. What, then, are those
sacred rites, for the performance of which holiness has chosen
such men as not even the obscenity of the stage has admitted ?

8. Concerning the interpretations , consisting of natural explanations , which the
pagan teachers attempt to show for their gods.

But all these things, they say, have certain physical, that
is, natural interpretations, showing their natural meaning;
as though in this disputation we were seeking physics and
not theology, which is the account, not of nature, but of God.
For although He who is the true God is God, not by opinion,
but by nature, nevertheless all nature is not God ; for there
is certainly a nature of man, of a beast, of a tree, of a stone,
— none of which is God. For if, when the question is con-
cerning the mother of the gods, that from which the whole
system of interpretation starts certainly is, that the mother of
the gods is the earth, why do we make further inquiry ? why
do we carry our investigation through all the rest of it ?
What can more manifestly favour them who say that all those
gods were men ? For they are earth-born in the sense that
the earth is their mother. But in the true theology the earth
is the work, not the mother, of God. But in whatever way
their sacred rites may be interpreted, and whatever reference
they may have to the nature of things, it is not according to
nature, but contrary to nature, that men should be effeminates.
This disease, this crime, this abomination, has a recognised
place among those sacred things, though even depraved men

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will scarcely be compelled by torments to confess they are
guilty of it Again, if these sacred rites, which are proved to
be fouler than scenic abominations, are excused and justified
on the ground that they have their own interpretations, by
which they are shown to symbolize the nature of things, why
are not the poetical things in like manner excused and justified ?
For many have interpreted even these in like fashion, to such
a degree that even that which they say is the most monstrous
and most horrible, — namely, that Saturn devoured his own
children, — has been interpreted by some of them to mean
that length of time, which is signified by the name of Saturn,
consumes whatever it begets; or that, as the same Varro
thinks, Saturn belongs to seeds which fall back again into the
earth from whence they spring. And so one interprets it in
one way, and one in another. And the same is to be said
of all the rest of this theology.

And, nevertheless, it is called the fabulous theology, and is
censured, cast off, rejected, together with all such interpreta-
tions belonging to it. And not only by the natural theology,
which is that of the philosophers, but also by this civil theology,
concerning which we are speaking, which is asserted to pertain
to cities and peoples, it is judged worthy of repudiation, be-
cause it has invented unworthy things concerning the gods.
Of which, I wot, this is the secret : that those most acute and
learned men, by whom those things were written, understood
that both theologies ought to be rejected, — to wit, both that
fabulous and this civil one, — but the former they dared to
reject, the latter they dared not ; the former thay set forth to
be censured, the latter they showed to be very like it ; not that
it might be chosen to be held in preference to the other,
but that it might be understood to be worthy of being rejected
together with it And thus, without danger to those who
feared to censure the civil theology, both of them being brought
into contempt, that theology which they call natural might
find a place in better disposed minds ; for the civil and the
fabulous are both fabulous and both civiL He who shall
wisely inspect the vanities and obscenities of both will find
that they are both fabulous; and he who shall direct his
attention to the scenic plays pertaining to the fabulous theo-

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logy in the festivals of the civil gods, and in the divine rites
of the cities, will find they are both civil How, then, can
the power of giving eternal life be attributed to any of those
gods whose own images and sacred rites convict them of being
most like to the fabulous gods, which are most openly repro-
bated, in forms, ages, sex, characteristics, marriages, generations,
rites ; in all which things they are understood either to have
been men, and to have had their sacred rites and solemnities
instituted in their honour according to the life or death of
each of them, the demons suggesting and confirming this error,
or certainly most foul spirits, who, taking advantage of some
occasion or other, have stolen into the minds of men to deceive
them ?

9. Concerning the special offices of the gods.

And as to those very offices of the gods, so meanly and so
minutely portioned out, so that they say that they ought to be
supplicated, each one according to his special function, — about
which we have spoken much already, though not all that is to
be said concerning it, — are they not more consistent with
mimic buffoonery than divine majesty ? If any one should
use two nurses for his infant, one of whom should give nothing
but food, the other nothing but drink, as these make use of
two goddesses for this purpose, Educa and Potina, he should
certainly seem to be foolish, and to do in his house a thing
worthy of a mimic. They would have liber to have been
named from “ liberation,” because through him males at the
time of copulation are liberated by the emission of the seed.
They also say that Libera (the same in their opinion as Venus)
exercises the same function in the case of women, because they
say that they also emit seed ; and they also say that on this
account the same part of the male and of the female is placed
in the temple, that of the male to liber, and that of the female
to Libera. To these things they add the women assigned to
Liber, and the wine for exciting lust Thus the Bacchanalia
are celebrated with the utmost insanity, with respect to which
Vaxro himself confesses that such things would not be done
by the Bacchanals except their minds were highly excited.
These things, however, afterwards displeased a saner senate,
and it ordered them to be discontinued. Here, at length, they

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perhaps perceived how much power unclean spirits, when held
to be gods, exercise over the minds of men. These things,
certainly, were not to be done in the theatres ; for there they
play, not rave, although to have gods who are delighted with
such plays is very like raving.

But what kind of distinction is this which he makes between
the religious and the superstitious man, saying that the gods
are feared1 by the superstitious man, but are reverenced2 as
parents by the religious man, not feared as enemies ; and that
they are all so good that they will more readily spare those
who are impious than hurt one who is innocent ? And yet he
tells us that three gods are assigned as guardians to a woman
after she has been delivered, lest the god Silvanus come in
and molest her ; and that in order to signify the presence of
these protectors, three men go round the house during the night,
and first strike the threshold with a hatchet, next with a pestle,
and the third time sweep it with a brush, in order that these
symbols of agriculture having been exhibited, the god Silvanus
might be hindered from entering, because neither are trees cut
down or pruned without a hatchet, neither is grain ground
without a pestle, nor com heaped up without a besom. Now
from these three things three gods have been named : Inter-
cidona, from the cut* made by the hatchet ; Pilumnus, from the
pestle ; Diverra, from the besom ; — by which guardian gods the
woman who has been delivered is preserved against the power
of the god Silvanus. Thus the guardianship of kindly-disposed
gods would not avail against the malice of a mischievous god,
unless they were three to one, and fought against him, as it
were, with the opposing emblems of cultivation, who, being an
inhabitant of the woods, is rough, horrible, and uncultivated.
Is this the innocence of the gods? Is this their concord?
Are these the health-giving deities of the cities, more ridiculous
than the things which are laughed at in the theatres ?

When a male and a female are united, the god Jugatinus pre-
sides. Well, let this be borne with. But the married woman
must be brought home : the god Domiducus also is invoked.
That she may be in the house, the god Domitius is introduced.
That she may remain with her husband, the goddess Man-
1 Timeri. 1 Vereri. 1 Intercido, I cut or cleave.

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turn® is used. What more is required ? Let human modesty
be spared. Let the lust of flesh and blood go on with the
rest, the secret of shame being respected. Why is the bed-
chamber filled with a crowd of deites, when even the grooms-
men1 have departed ? And, moreover, it is so filled, not that
in consideration of their presence more regard may be paid to
chastity, but that by their help the woman, naturally of the
weaker sex, and trembling with the novelty of her situation,
may the more readily yield her virginity. For there are the
goddess Yirginiensis, and the god-father Subigus, and the
goddess-mother Prema, and the goddess Pertunda, and Venus,
and Priapus.2 What is this ? If it was absolutely necessary
that a man, labouring at this work, should be helped by the
gods, might not some one god or goddess have been sufficient ?
Was Venus not sufficient alone, who is even said to be named
from this, that without her power a woman does not cease to
be a virgin ? If there is any shame in men, which is not in
the deities, is it not the case that, when the married couple
believe that so many gods of either sex are present, and busy
at this work, they are so much affected with shame, that the
man is less moved, and the woman more reluctant ? And
certainly, if the goddess Virginiensis is present to loose the
virgin’s zone, if the god Subigus is present that the virgin
may be got under the man, if the goddess Prema is present
that, having been got under him, she may be kept down, and
may not move herself, what has the goddess Pertunda to do
there ? Let her blush ; let her go forth. Let the husband
himself do something. It is disgraceful that any one but him-
self should do that from which she gets her name. But per-
haps she is tolerated because she is said to be a goddess, and
not a god. For if she were believed to be a male, and were
called Pertundus, the husband would demand more help against
him for the chastity of his wife than the newly-delivered
woman against Silvanus. But why am I saying this, when
Priapus, too, is there, a male to excess, upon whose immense
and most unsightly member the newly-married bride is com-

1 ParanymphL

* Comp. Tertullian, Adv. Nat . ii 11 ; Araobius, Contrb Gent. iv. ; L&ctantms,
Inst, i. 20.

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manded to sit, according to the most honourable and most
religious custom of matrons ?

Let them go on, and let them attempt with all the subtlety
they can to distinguish the civil theology from the fabulous,
the cities from the theatres, the temples from the stages, the
sacred things of the priests from the songs of the poets,
as honourable things from base things, truthful things from
fallacious, grave from light, serious from ludicrous, desirable
things from things to be rejected, we understand what they
do. They are aware that that theatrical and fabulous theology
hangs by the civil, and is reflected back upon it from the songs
of the poets as from a mirror ; and thus, that theology having
been exposed to view which they do not dare to condemn, they
more freely assail and censure that picture of it, in order that
those who perceive what they mean may detest this very face
itself of which that is the picture, — which, however, the gods
themselves, as though seeing themselves in the same mirror,
love so much, that it is better seen in both of them who and
what they are. Whence, also, they have compelled their wor-
shippers, with terrible commands, to dedicate to them the un-
cleanness of the fabulous theology, to put them among their
solemnities, and reckon them among divine things ; and thus
they have both shown themselves more manifestly to be most
impure spirits, and have made that rejected and reprobated
theatrical theology a member and a part of this, as it were,
chosen and approved theology of the city, so that, though the
whole is disgraceful and false, and contains in it fictitious
gods, one part of it is in the literature of the priests, the other
in the songs of the poets. Whether it may have other parts
is another question. At present, I think, I have sufficiently
shown, on account of the division of Varro, that the theology
of the city and that of the theatre belong to one civil theology.
Wherefore, because they are both equally disgraceful, absurd,
shameful, false, far be it from religious men to hope for eternal
life from either the one or the other.

In fine, even Varro himself, in his account and enumeration
of the gods, starts from the moment of a man's conception.
He commences the series of those gods who take charge of
man with Janus, carries it on to the death of the man de-

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crepit with age, and terminates it with the goddess Ksenia,
who is sung at the funerals of the aged. After that, he begins
to give an account of the other gods, whose province is not
man himself, but man’s belongings, as food, clothing, and all
that is necessary for this life ; and, in the case of all these,
he explains what is the special office of each, and for what
each ought to be supplicated. But with all this scrupulous
and comprehensive diligence, he has neither proved the exist-
ence, nor so much as mentioned the name, of any god from
whom eternal life is to be sought, — the one object for which
we are Christians. Who, then, is so stupid as not to perceive
that this man, by setting forth and opening up so diligently
the civil theology, and by exhibiting its likeness to that fabu-
lous, shameful, and disgraceful theology, and also by teaching
that that fabulous sort is also a part of this other, was labour-
ing to obtain a place in the minds of men for none but that
natural theology which he says pertains to philosophers, with
such subtlety that he censures the fabulous, and, not daring
openly to censure the civil, shows its censurable character by
simply exhibiting it ; and thus, both being reprobated by the
judgment of men of right understanding, the natural alone re-
mains to be chosen ? But concerning this in its own place, by
the help of the true God, we have to discuss more diligently.

10. Concerning the liberty of Seneca , who more vehemently censured the civil
theology than Varro did the fabulous .

That liberty, in truth, which this man wanted, so that
he did not dare to censure that theology of the city, which
is very similar to the theatrical, so openly as he did the
theatrical itself, was, though not fully, yet in part possessed
by Annaeus Seneca, whom we have some evidence to show to
have flourished in the times of our apostles. It was in part
possessed by him, I say, for he possessed it in writing, but
not in living. For in that book which he wrote against
superstition,1 he more copiously and vehemently censured
that civil and urban theology than Varro the theatrical and
fabulous. For, when speaking concerning images, he says,
“ They dedicate images of the sacred and inviolable immortals
in most worthless and motionless matter. They give them
1 Mentioned also by Tertnllian, Apol. 12, but not extant

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the appearance of man, beasts, and fishes, and some make
them of mixed sex, and heterogeneous bodies. They call
them deities, when they are such that if they should get
breath and should suddenly meet them, they would be held
to be monsters.” Then, a while afterwards, when extolling
the natural theology, he had expounded the sentiments of
certain philosophers, he opposes to himself a question, and
says, “ Here some one says, Shall I believe that the heavens
and the earth are gods, and that some are above the moon
and some below it ? Shall I bring forward either Plato or the
peripatetic Strato, one of whom made God to be without a
body, the other without a mind ?” In answer to which he
says, “ And, really, what truer do the dreams of Titus Tatius,
or Romulus, or Tullus Hostilius appear to thee ? Tatius de-
clared the divinity of the goddess Cloacina ; Romulus that of
Picus and Tiberinus ; Tullus Hostilius that of Pavor and Pallor,
the most disagreeable affections of men, the one of which
is the agitation of the mind under fright, the other that of the
body, not a disease, indeed, but a change of colour.” Wilt
thou rather believe that these are deities, and receive them
into heaven? But with what freedom he has written con-
cerning the rites themselves, cruel and shameful! "One,”
he says, "castrates himself, another cuts his arms. Where
will they find room for the fear of these gods when angry,
who use such means of gaining their favour when propitious ?
But gods who wish to be worshipped in this fashion should
be worshipped in none. So great is the frenzy of the mind
when perturbed and driven from its seat, that the gods are
propitiated by men in a manner in which not even men of
the greatest ferocity and fable-renowned cruelty vent their
rage. Tyrants have lacerated the limbs of some ; they never
ordered any one to lacerate his own. For the gratification of
royal lust, some have been castrated; but no one ever, by
the command of his lord, laid violent hands on himself to
emasculate himself. They kill themselves in the temples.
They supplicate with their wounds and with their blood. Il
any one has time to see the things they do and the things
they suffer, he will find so many things unseemly for men of
respectability, so unworthy of freemen, so unlike the doings

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of sane men, that no one would doubt that they are mad, had
they been mad with the minority ; but now the multitude of
the insane is the defence of their sanity.”

He next relates those things which are wont to be done
in the Capitol, and with the utmost intrepidity insists that
they are such things as one could only believe to be done
by men making sport, or by madmen. For, having spoken
with derision of this, that in the Egyptian sacred rites Osiris,
being lost, is lamented for, but straightway, when found, is
the occasion of great joy by his reappearance, because both
the losing and the finding of him are feigned; and yet that
grief and that joy which are elicited thereby from those who
have lost nothing and found nothing are real ; — having, I say,
so spoken of this, he says, "Still there is a fixed time for
this frenzy. It is tolerable to go mad once in the year. Go
into the CapitoL One is suggesting divine commands 1 to a
god ; another is telling the hours to Jupiter ; one is a lictor ;
another is an anointer, who with the mere movement of his
arms imitates one anointing. There are women who arrange
the hair of Juno and Minerva, standing far away not only
from her image, but even from her temple. These move their
fingers in the manner of hair-dressers. There are some women
who hold a mirror. There are some who are calling the gods
to assist them in court. There are some who are holding up
documents to them, and are explaining to them their cases.
A learned and distinguished comedian, now old and decrepit,
was daily playing the mimic in the Capitol, as though the gods
would gladly be spectators of that which men had ceased to
care about. Every kind of artificers working for the immortal
gods is dwelling there in idleness.” And a little after he says,
“ Nevertheless these, though they give themselves up to the
gods for purposes superfluous enough, do not do so for any
abominable or infamous purpose. There sit certain women in
the Capitol who think they are beloved by Jupiter ; nor are
they frightened even by the look of the, if you will believe
the poets, most wrathful Juno.”

1 Numina. Another reading is nomina ; and with either reading another trans-
lation is admissible : “One is announcing to a god the names (or gods) who
salute him.”

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This liberty Varro did not enjoy. It was only the poetical
theology he seemed to censure. The civil, which this man
cuts to pieces, he was not bold enough to impugn. But if we
attend to the truth, the temples where these things are per-
formed are far worse than the theatres where they are repre-
sented. Whence, with respect to these sacred rites of the
civil theology, Seneca preferred, as the best course to be fol-
lowed by a wise man, to feign respect for them in act, but to
have no real regard for them at heart a All which things,”
he says, “ a wise man will observe as being commanded by
the laws, but not as being pleasing to the gods.” And a little
after he says, “ And what of this, that we unite the gods in
marriage, and that not even naturally, for we join brothers
and sisters ? We marry Bellona to Mars, Venus to Vulcan,
Salacia to Neptune. Some of them we leave unmarried, as
though there were no match for them, which is surely need-
less, especially when there are certain unmarried goddesses,
as Populonia, or Eulgora, or the goddess Rumina, for whom
I am not astonished that suitors have been awanting. All
this ignoble crowd of gods, which the superstition of ages has
amassed, we ought,” he says, " to adore in such a way as to re-
member all the while that its worship belongs rather to custom
than to reality.” Wherefore, neither those laws nor customs
instituted in the civil theology that which was pleasing to the
gods, or which pertained to reality. But this man, whom
philosophy had made, as it were, free, nevertheless, because
he was an illustrious senator of the Roman people, wor-
shipped what he censured, did what he condemned, adored
what he reproached, because, forsooth, philosophy had taught
him something great, — namely, not to be superstitious in the
world, but, on account of the laws of cities and the customs
of men, to be an actor, not on the stage, but in the temples,
— conduct the more to be condemned, that those things which
he was deceitfully acting he so acted that the people thought
he was acting sincerely. But a stage-actor would rather
delight people by acting plays than take them in by false
pretences.

11. What Seneca thought concerning the Jews.

Seneca, among the other superstitions of civil theology,

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also found fault with the sacred things of the Jews, and
especially the sabbaths, affirming that they act uselessly in
keeping those seventh days, whereby they lose through idle-
ness about the seventh part of their life, and also many
things which demand immediate attention are damaged. The
Christians, however, who were already most hostile to the
Jews, he did not dare to mention, either for praise or blame,
lest, if he praised them, he should do so against the ancient
custom of his country, or, perhaps, if he should blame them,
he should do so against his own will.

When he was speaking concerning those Jews, he said,
* When, meanwhile, the customs of that most accursed nation
have gained such strength that they have been now received in
all lands, the conquered have given laws to the conquerors.”
By these words he expresses his astonishment; and, not know-
ing what the providence of God was leading him to say, sub-
joins in plain words an opinion by which he showed what
he thought about the meaning of those sacred institutions:
“ For,” he says, “ those, however, know the cause of their rites,
whilst the greater part of the people know not why they per-
form theirs.” But concerning the solemnities of the Jews,
either why or how far they were instituted by divine autho-
rity, and afterwards, in due time, by the same authority taken
away from the people of God, to whom the mystery of eternal
life was revealed, we have both spoken elsewhere, especially
when we were treating against the Manichaeans, and also intend
to speak in this work in a more suitable place.

12. That when once the vanity of the gods of the nations has been exposed, it
cannot be doubted that they are unable to bestow eternal life on any one,
when they cannot afford help even with respect to the things qf this temporal
life.

Now, since there are three theologies, which the Greeks
call respectively' mythical, physical, and political, and which
may be called in Latin fabulous, natural, and civil ; and since
neither from the fabulous, which even the worshippers of
many and false gods have themselves most freely censured,
nor from the civil, of which that is convicted of being a part,
or even worse than it, can eternal life be hoped for from any
of these theologies, — if any one thinks that what has been

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said in this book is not enough for him, let him also add to
it the many and various dissertations concerning God as the
giver of felicity, contained in the former books, especially the
fourth one.

For to what but to felicity should men consecrate them-
selves, were felicity a goddess ? However, as it is not a
goddess, but a gift of God, to what God but the giver of
happiness ought we to consecrate ourselves, who piously love
eternal life, in which there is true and full felicity ? But I
think, from what has been said, no one ought to doubt that
none of those gods is the giver of happiness, who are wor-
shipped with such shame, and who, if they are not so wor-
shipped, are more shamefully enraged, and thus confess that
they are most foul spirits. Moreover, how can he give eternal
life who cannot give happiness ? For we mean by eternal life
that life where there is endless happiness. For if the soul
live in eternal punishments, by which also those unclean
spirits shall be tormented, that is rather eternal death than
eternal life. For there is no greater or worse death than
when death never dies. But because the soul from its very
nature, being created immortal, cannot be without some kind
of life, its utmost death is alienation from the life of God in
an eternity of punishment So, then. He only who gives true
happiness gives eternal life, that is, an endlessly happy life.
And since those gods whom this civil theology worships have
been proved to be unable to give this happiness, they ought
not to be worshipped on account of those temporal and terres-
trial things, as we showed in the five former books, much less
on account of eternal life, which is to be after death, as
we have sought to show in this one book especially, whilst
the other books also lend it their co-operation. But since the
strength of inveterate habit has its roots very deep, if any one
thinks that I have not disputed sufficiently to show that this
civil theology ought to be rejected and shunned, let him attend
to another book which, with God’s help, is to be joined to this
one.

VOL. L

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BOOK SEVENTH.

ABGUMENT.

IN THIS BOOK IT 18 SHOWN THAT ETERNAL LIFE 18 NOT OBTAINED BY THE
WORSHIP OF JANUS, JUPITER, SATURN, AND THE OTHER “SELECT GODS’* OF
THE CIVIL THEOLOGY.

PREFACE.

IT will be the duty of those who are endowed with quicker
and better understandings, in whose case the former books
are sufficient, and more than sufficient, to effect their intended
object, to bear with me with patience and equanimity whilst
I attempt with more than ordinary diligence to tear up and
eradicate depraved and ancient opinions hostile to the truth
of piety, which the long-continued error of the human race
has fixed very deeply in unenlightened minds; co-operating
also in this, according to my little measure, with the grace of
Him who, being the true God, is able to accomplish it, and
on whose help I depend in my work; and, for the sake of
others, such should not deem superfluous what they feel to be
no longer necessary for themselves. A very great matter is
at stake when the true and truly holy divinity is commended
to men as that which they ought to seek after and to wor-
ship ; not, however, on account of the transitory vapour of
mortal life, but on account of life eternal, which alone is
blessed, although the help necessary for this frail life we are
now living is also afforded us by it.

1. Whether, since it is evident that Deity is not to be found in the civil theology,
we are to believe that it is to be found in the select gods.

If there is any one whom the sixth book, which I have last
finished, has not persuaded that this divinity, or, so to speak,
deity — for this word also our authors do not hesitate to use,
in order to translate more accurately that which the Greeks
call deoTrjs ; — if there is any one, I say, whom the sixth book
has not persuaded that this divinity or deify is not to be

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found in that theology which they call civil, and which
Marcus Varro has explained in sixteen books, — that is, that
the happiness of eternal life is not attainable through the
worship of gods such as states have established to be wor-
shipped, and that in such a form, — perhaps, when he has read
this book, he will not have anything further to desire in order
to the clearing up of this question. For it is possible that
some one may think that at least the select and chief gods,
whom Yarro comprised in his last book, and of whom we have
not spoken sufficiently, are to be worshipped on account of
the blessed life, which is none other than eternal In respect
to which matter I do not say what Tertullian said, perhaps
more wittily than truly, "If gods are selected like onions,
certainly the rest are rejected as bad.”1 . I do not say this,
for I see that even from among the select, some are selected
for some greater and more excellent office: as in warfare,
when recruits have been elected, there are some again elected
from among those for the performance of some greater military
service ; and in the church, when persons are elected to be
overseers, certainly the rest are not rejected, since all good
Christians are deservedly called elect; in the erection of a
building comer stones are elected, though the other stones, which
are destined for other parts of the structure, are not rejected ;
grapes are elected for eating, whilst the others, which we leave
for drinking, are not rejected. There is no need of adducing
many illustrations, since the thing is evident Wherefore the
selection of certain gods from among many affords no proper
reason why either he who wrote on this subject, or the wor-
shippers of the gods, or the gods themselves, should be spumed.
We ought rather to seek to know what gods these are, and for
what purpose they may appeaT to have been selected.

2. Who are the select gods , and whether they are held to he exempt from the
offices of the commoner gods.

The following gods, certainly, Yarro signalizes as select,
devoting one book to this subject: Janus, Jupiter, Saturn,
Genius, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Vulcan, Neptune, Sol, Orcus,
father liber, Tellus, Ceres, Juno, Luna, Diana, Minerva, Venus,

1 Tert. Apol. 13, “Nec electio sine reprobatione and Ad Nationes , ii. 9,

Si dei ut bulbi seliguntur, qui non seliguntur, reprobi pronun tiantur.”

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Vesta; of which twenty gods, twelve are males, and eight
females. Whether are these deities called select, because of
their higher spheres of administration in the world, or because
they have become better known to the people, and more wor-
ship has been expended on them ? If it be on account of the
greater works which are performed by them in the world, we
ought not to have found them among that, as it were, plebeian
crowd of deities, which has assigned to it the charge of minute
and trifling things. For, first of all, at the conception of a
foetus, from which point all the works commence which have
been distributed in minute detail to many deities, Janus him-
self opens the way for the reception of the seed ; there also
is Saturn, on account of the seed itself ; there is liber,1 who
liberates the male by the effusion of the seed ; there is Libera,
whom they also would have to be Venus, who confers this
same benefit on the woman, namely, that she also be liberated
by the emission of the seed ; — all these are of the number
of those who are called select. But there is also the goddess
Mena, who presides over the menses; though the daughter
of Jupiter, ignoble nevertheless. And this province of the
menses the same author, in his book on the select gods, assigns
to Juno herself, who is even queen among the select gods; and
here, as Juno Lucina, along with the same Mena, her step-
daughter, she presides over the same blood. There also are
two gods, exceedingly obscure, Vitumnus and Sentinus — the
one of whom imparts life to the foetus, and the other sensa-
tion ; and, of a truth, they bestow, most ignoble though they
be, far more than all those noble and select gods bestow. For,
surely, without life and sensation, what is the whole foetus
which a woman carries in her womb, but a most vile and
worthless thing, no better than slime and dust ?

3. How there is no reason which can he shown for the selection of certain gods,
when the administration of more exalted offices is assigned to many inferior
gods.

What is the cause, therefore, which has driven so many
select gods to these very small works, in which they are
excelled by Vitumnus and Sentinus, though little known and

1 Cicero, Be Nat. Dear, ii, distinguishes this Liber from Liber Bacchus, son
of Jupiter and Semele.

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sunk in obscurity, inasmuch as they confer the munificent
gifts of life and sensation ? For the select Janus bestows an
entrance, and, as it were, a door1 for the seed ; the select
Saturn bestows the seed itself; the select Liber bestows on
men the emission of the same seed ; Libera, who is Ceres or
Venus, confers the same on women ; the select Juno confers
(not alone, but together with Mena, the daughter of Jupiter)
the menses, for the growth of that which has been conceived ;
and the obscure and ignoble Vitumnus confers life, whilst the
obscure and ignoble Sentinus confers sensation ; — which two
last things are as much more excellent than the others, as
they themselves are excelled by reason and intellect For as
those things which reason and understand are preferable to
those which, without intellect and reason, as in the case of
cattle, live and feel; so also those things which have been
endowed with life and sensation are deservedly preferred to
those things which neither live nor feeL Therefore Vitumnus
the life-giver,* and Sentinus the sense-giver,8 ought to have
been reckoned among the select gods, rather than Janus the
admitter of seed, and Saturn the giver or sower of seed, and
liber and Libera the movers and liberators of seed; which
seed is not worth a thought, unless it attain to life and sensa-
tion. Yet these select gifts are not given by select gods, but
by certain unknown, and, considering their dignity, neglected
gods. But if it be replied that Janus has dominion over all
beginnings, and therefore the opening of the way for concep-
tion is not without reason assigned to him ; and that Saturn
has dominion over all seeds, and therefore the sowing of the
seed whereby a human being is generated cannot be excluded
from his operation ; that Liber and Libera have power over the
emission of all seeds, and therefore preside over those seeds
which pertain to the procreation of men ; that Juno presides
over all purgations and births, and therefore she has also
charge of the purgations of women and the births of human
beings ; — if they give this reply, let them find an answer to
the question concerning Vitumnus and Sentinus, whether they
are willing that these likewise should have dominion over all
things which live and feeL If they grant this, let them
1 Januam. * Vivificator, 8 Senmficator .

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observe in how sublime a position they are about to place
them. For to spring from seeds is in the earth and of the
earth, but to live and feel are supposed to be properties even
of the sidereal gods. But if they say that only such things
as come to life in flesh, and are supported by senses, are
assigned to Sentinus, why does not that God who made all
things live and feel, bestow on flesh also life and sensation,
in the universality of His operatioii conferring also on foetuses
this gift ? And what, then, is the use of Vitumnus and Sen-
tinus ? But if these, as it were, extreme and lowest things
have been committed by Him who presides universally over
life and sense to these gods as to servants, are these select
gods then so destitute of servants, that they could not find any
to whom even they might commit those things, but with all
their dignity, for which they are, it seems, deemed worthy to
be selected, were compelled to perform their work along with
ignoble ones? Juno is select queen of the gods, and the
sister and wife of Jupiter ; nevertheless she is Iterduca, the
conductor, to boys, and performs this work along with a most
ignoble pair — the goddesses Abeona and Adeona. There they
have also placed the goddess Mena, who gives to boys a good
mind, and she is not placed among the select gods ; as if any-
thing greater could be bestowed on a man them a good mind.
But Juno is placed among the select because she is Iter-
duca and Domiduca (she who conducts one on a journey, and
who conducts him home again); as if it is of any advantage
for one to make a journey, and to be conducted home again, if
his mind is not good. And yet the goddess who bestows that
gift has not been placed by the selectors among the select
gods, though she ought indeed to have been preferred even to
Minerva, to whom, in this minute distribution of work, they
have allotted the memory of boys. For who will doubt that
it is a far better thing to have a good mind, than ever so great
a memory ? For no one is bad who has a good mind ;* but
some who are very bad are possessed of an admirable memory,
and are so much the worse, the less they are able to forget
the bad things which they think. And yet Minerva is among
the select gods, whilst the goddess Mena is hidden by a worth-
lAawc8ay, “right-minded.”

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less crowd. What shall I say concerning Virtus ? What con-
cerning Felicitas ?— concerning whom I have already spoken
much in the fourth book ;l to whom, though they held them
to be goddesses, they have not thought fit to assign a place
among the select gods, among whom they have given a place
to Mars and Orcus, the one the causer of death, the other the
receiver of the dead.

Since, therefore, we see that even the select gods themselves
work together with the others, like a senate with the people,
in all those minute works which have been minutely portioned
out among many gods ; and since we find that far greater and
better things are administered by certain gods who have not
been reckoned worthy to be selected than by those who are
called select, it remains that we suppose that they were called
select and chief, not on account of their holding more exalted
offices in the world, but because it happened to them to become
better known to the people. And even Varro himself says,
that in that way obscurity had fallen to the lot of some father
gods and mother goddesses,2 * * as it falls to the lot of men. If,
therefore, Felicity ought not perhaps to have been put among
the select gods, because they did not attain to that noble posi-
tion by merit, but by chance, Fortune at least should have been
placed among them, or rather before them ; for they say that
that goddess distributes to every one the gifts she receives,
not according to any rational arrangement, but according as
chance may determine. She ought to have held the uppermost
place among the select gods, for among them chiefly it is that
she shows what power she has. For we see that they have
been selected not on account of some eminent virtue or rational
happiness, but by that random power of Fortune which the
worshippers of these gods think that she exerts. For that most
eloquent man Sallust also may perhaps have the gods them-
selves in view when he says : “ But, in truth, fortune rules in
everything ; it renders all things famous or obscure, according
to caprice rather than according to truth.”8 For they cannot

1 Ch. 21, 23.

* The father Saturn, and the mother Ops, e.g.t being more obscure than their

son Jupiter and daughter Juno.

* Sallust, Cal, Conj. ch. 8.

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discover a reason why Venus should have been made famous,
whilst Virtus has been made obscure, when the divinity of both
of them has been solemnly recognised by them, and their merits
are not to be compared. Again, if she has deserved a noble
position on account of the fact that she is much sought after —
for there are more who seek after Venus than after Virtus —
why has Minerva been celebrated whilst Pecunia has been
left in obscurity, although throughout the whole human race
avarice allures a far greater number than skill ? And even
among those who are skilled in the arts, you will rarely find
a man who does not practise his own art for the purpose of
pecuniary gain ; and that for the sake of which anything is
made, is always valued more than that which is made for the
sake of something else. If, then, this selection of gods has
been made by the judgment of the foolish multitude, why has
not the goddess Pecunia been preferred to Minerva, since there
are many artificers for the sake of money ? But if this dis-
tinction has been made by the few wise, why has Virtus been
preferred to Venus, when reason by far prefers the former ?
At all events, as I have already said, Fortune herself — who,
according to those who attribute most influence to her, renders
all things famous or obscure according to caprice rather than
according to the truth — since she has been able to exercise so
much power even over the gods, as, according to her capricious
judgment, to render those of them famous whom she would,
and those obscure whom she would ; Fortune herself ought to
occupy the place of pre-eminence among the select gods, since
over them also she has such pre-eminent power. Or must
we suppose that the reason why she is not among the select
is simply this, that even Fortune herself has had an adverse
fortune ? She was adverse, then, to herself, since, whilst en-
nobling others, she herself has remained obscure.

4. The inferior gods , whose names are not associated with infamy, have been better
dealt with than the select gods , whose infamies are celebrated.

However, any one who eagerly seeks for celebrity and re-
nown, might congratulate those select gods, and call them
fortunate, were it not that he saw that they have been selected
more to their injury than to their honour. For that low
crowd of gods have been protected by their very meanness

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and obscurity from being overwhelmed with infamy. We
laugh, indeed, when we see them distributed by the mere
fiction of human opinions, according to the special works
assigned to them, like those who farm small portions of the
public revenue, or like workmen in the street of the silver-
smiths,1 where one vessel, in order that it may go out perfect,
passes through the hands of many, when it might have been
finished by one perfect workman. But the only reason why
the combined skill of many workmen was thought necessary,
was, that it is better that each part of an art should be learned
by a special workman, which can be done speedily and easily,
than that they should all be compelled to be perfect in one
art throughout all its parts, which they could only attain
slowly and with difficulty. Nevertheless there is scarcely to
be found one of the non-select gods who has brought infamy
on himself by any crime, whilst there is scarce any one of the
select gods who has not received upon himself the brand of
notable infamy. These latter have descended to the humble
works of the others, whilst the others have not come up to
their sublime crimes. Concerning Janus, there does not
readily occur to my recollection anything infamous; and
perhaps he was such an one as lived more innocently than
the rest, and further removed lrom misdeeds and crimes. He
kindly received and entertained Saturn when he was fleeing ;
he divided his kingdom with his guest, so that each of them
had a city for himself,2 — the one Janiculum, and the other
Satumia. But those seekers after every kind of unseemliness
in the worship of the gods have disgraced him, whose life they
found to be less disgraceful than that of the other gods, with an
image of monstrous deformity, making it sometimes with two
faces, and sometimes, as it were, double, with four faces.3 Did
they wish that, as the most of the select gods had lost shame4 *
through the perpetration of shameful crimes, his greater inno-
cence should be marked by a greater number of faces ?6

1 Vicus argentarius. * Virgil, J&neid, viiL 357, 358.

* Quadrifrons. 4 Frons.

6 “ Quanto iste innocentior esset, tanto frontosior appareret being used for

the shamelessness of innocence, as we use “face” for the shamelessness of im-

pudence.

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5. Concerning the more secret doctrine qf the pagans , and concerning the
physical interpretations.

But let us hear their own physical interpretations by which
they attempt to colour, as with the appearance of profounder
doctrine, the baseness of most miserable error. Varro, in the
first place, commends these interpretations so strongly as to say,
that the ancients invented the images, badges, and adornments
of the gods, in order that when those who went to the mysteries
should see them with their bodily eyes, they might with the eyes
of their mind see the soul of the world, and its parts, that is,
the true gods ; and also that the meaning which was intended
by those who made their images with the human form, seemed
to be this, — namely, that the mind of mortals, which is in a
human body, is very like to the immortal mind,1 just as vessels
might be placed to represent the gods, as, for instance, a wine-
vessel might be placed in the temple of liber, to signify wine,
that which is contained being signified by that which contains.
Thus by an image which had the human form the rational
soul was signified, because the human form is the vessel, as it
were, in which that nature is wont to be contained which they
attribute to God, or to the gods. These are the mysteries of
doctrine to which that most learned man penetrated in order
that he might bring them forth to the light But, 0 thou
most acute man, hast thou lost among those mysteries that
prudence which led thee to form the sober opinion, that those
who first established those images for the people took away
fear from the citizens and added error, and that the ancient
Romans honoured the gods more chastely without images?
For it was through consideration of them that thou wast
emboldened to speak these things against the later Romans.
For if those most ancient Romans also had worshipped images,
perhaps thou wouldst have suppressed by the silence of fear
all those sentiments (true sentiments, nevertheless) concerning
the folly of setting up images, and wouldst have extolled more
loftily, and more loquaciously, those mysterious doctrines con-
sisting of these vain and pernicious fictions. Thy soul, so
learned and so clever (and for this I grieve much for thee),
could never through these mysteries have reached its God ; that
1 Cicero, Tusc. Qwest, v. 13. ,

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is, the God by whom, not with whom, it was made, of whom
it is not a part, but a work, — that God who is not the soul of
all things, but who made every soul, and in whose light alone
every soul is blessed, if it be not ungrateful for His grace.

But the things which follow in this book will show what is
the nature of these mysteries, and what value is to be set upon
them. Meanwhile, this most learned man confesses as his
opinion that the soul of the world and its parts are the true
gods, from which we perceive that his theology (to wit, that
same natural theology to which he pays great regard) has been
able, in its completeness, to extend itself even to the nature
of the rational soul For in this book (concerning the select
gods) he says a very few things by anticipation concerning
the natural theology ; and we shall see whether he has been
able in that book, by means of physical interpretations, to
refer to this natural theology that civil theology, concerning
which he wrote last when treating of the select gods. Now,
if he has been able to do this, the whole is natural; and
in that case, what need was there for distinguishing so care-
fully the civil from the natural ? But if it has been dis-
tinguished by a veritable distinction, then, since not even this
natural theology with which he is so much pleased is true (for
though it has reached as far as the soul, it has not reached to
the true God who made the soul), how much more contempti-
ble and false is that civil theology which is chiefly occupied
about what is corporeal, as will be shown by its very interpre-
tations, which they have with such diligence sought out and
enucleated, some of which I must necessarily mention !

6. Concerning the opinion of Varro, that God is the soul of the toorld, which

nevertheless , in its various parts , has many souls whose nature is divine.

The same Varro, then, still speaking by anticipation, sayfe
that he thinks that God is the soul of the world (which the
Greeks call *007*09), and that this world itself is God ; but as
a wise man, though he consists of body and mind, is neverthe-
less called wise on account of his mind, so the world is called
God on account of mind, although it consists of mind and
body. Here he seems, in some fashion at least, to acknowledge
one God ; but that he may introduce more, he adds that the
world is divided into two parts, heaven and earth, which are

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again divided each into two parts, heaven into ether and air,
earth into water and land, of all which the ether is the highest,
the air second, the water third, and the earth the lowest. All
these four parts, he says, are full of souls ; those which are in
the ether and air being immortal, and those which are in the
water and on the earth mortal From the highest part of the
heavens to the orbit of the moon there are souls, namely, the
stars and planets ; and these are not only understood to be
gods, but are seen to be such. And between the orbit of the
moon and the commencement of the region of clouds and winds
there are aerial souls ; but these are seen with the mind, not
with the eyes, and are called Heroes, and Lares, and Genii.
This is the natural theology which is briefly set forth in these
anticipatory statements, and which satisfied not Varro only, but
many philosophers besides. This I must discuss more care-
fully, when, with the help of God, I shall have completed what
I have yet to say concerning the civil theology, as far as it
concerns the select gods.

7. Whether it is reasonable to separate Janus and Terminus as
two distinct deities .

Who, then, is Janus, with whom Varro commences ? He
is the world. Certainly a very brief and unambiguous reply.
Why, then, do they say that the beginnings of things pertain
to him, but the ends to another whom they call Terminus ?
For they say that two months have been dedicated to these
two gods, with reference to beginnings and ends — January to
Janus, and February to Terminus — over and above those ten
months which commence with March and end with December.
And they say that that is the reason why the Terminalia
are celebrated in the month of February, the same month
in which the sacred purification is made which they call
Februum, and from which the month derives its name.1
Do the beginnings of things, therefore, pertain to the world,
which is Janus, and not also the ends, since another god

1 An interesting account of the changes made in the Roman year by Numa is
given in Plutarch’s life of that king. Ovid also {Fasti, ii.) explains the deri-
vation of February, telling us that it was the last month of the old year, and
took its name from the lustrations performed then : “Februa Romani dixere
piamina patres. ”

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has been placed over them ? Do they not own that all
things which they say begin in this world also come to an end
in this world ? What folly it is, to give him only half power
in work, when in his image they give him two faces ! Would
it not be a far more elegant way of interpreting the two-faced
image, to say that Janus and Terminus are the same, and that
the one face has reference to beginnings, the other to ends ?
For one who works ought to have respect to both. For he
who in every forthputting of activity does not look back on
the beginning, does not look forward to the end. Wherefore
it is necessary that prospective intention be connected with
retrospective memory. For how shall one find how to finish
anything, if he has forgotten what it was which he had begun ?
But if they thought that the blessed life is begun in this
world, and perfected beyond the world, and for that reason
attributed to Janus, that is, to the world, only the power of
beginnings, they should certainly have preferred Terminus to
him, and should not have shut him out from the number of
the select gods. Yet even now, when the beginnings and ends
of temporal things are represented by these two gods, more
honour ought to have been given to Terminus. For the greater
joy is that which is felt when anything is finished ; but things
begun are always cause of much anxiety until they are brought
to an end, which end he who begins anything very greatly
longs for, fixes his mind on, expects, desires ; nor does any one
ever rejoice over anything he has begun, unless it be brought
to an end.

8. For what reason the worshippers qf Janus have made his image with two
faces, when they would sometimes have it be seen with four.

But now let the interpretation of the two-faced image be
produced. For they say that it has two faces, one before and
one behind, because our gaping mouths seem to resemble the
world : whence the Greeks call the palate ovpavos, and some
Latin poets,1 he says, have called the heavens palatum [the
palate] ; and from the gaping mouth, they say, there is a way
out in the direction of the teeth, and a way in in the direction
of the gullet. See what the world has been brought to on
account of a Greek or a poetical word for our palate ! Let
1 Ennius, in Cicero, De Nat, Dear. ii. 18.

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this god be worshipped only on account of saliva, which has
two open doorways under the heavens of the palate, — one
through which part of it may be spitten out, the other through
which part of it may be swallowed down. Besides, what is
more absurd than not to find in the world itself two doorways
opposite to each other, through which it may either receive
anything into itself, or cast it out from itself ; and to seek of
our throat and gullet, to which the world has no resemblance,
to make up an image of the world in Janus, because the world
is said to resemble the palate, to which Janus bears no like-
ness? But when they make him four-faced, and call him
double Janus, they interpret this as having reference to the
four quarters of the world, as though the world looked out on
anything, like Janus through his four faces. Again, if Janus
is the world, and the world consists of four quarters, then the
image of the two-faced Janus is false. Or if it is true, because
the whole world is sometimes understood by the expression east
and west, will any one call the world double when north and
south also are mentioned, as they call Janus double when he
has four faces ? They have no way at all of interpreting, in
relation to the world, four doorways by which to go in and to
come out as they did in the case of the two-faced Janus, where
they found, at any rate in the human mouth, something
which answered to what they said about him ; unless perhaps
Neptune come to their aid, and hand them a fish, which,
besides the mouth and gullet, has also the openings of the
gills, one on each side. Nevertheless, with all the doors, no
soul escapes this vanity but that one which hears the truth
saying, “I am the door.”1

9. Concerning the power qf Jupiter, and a comparison of Jupiter with Janus.

. But they also show whom they would have Jove (who is
also called Jupiter) understood to be. He is the god, say
they, who has the power of the causes by which anything
comes to be in the world. And how great a thing this is,
that most noble verse of Virgil testifies :

“ Happy is he who has learned the causes of things.” *

1 John x. 9.

2 Oeorgic, iL 470.

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But why is Janus preferred to him? Let that most acute
and most learned man answer us this question. "Because/’
says he, “ Janus, has dominion over first things, Jupiter over
highest1 things. Therefore Jupiter is deservedly held to be
the king of all things ; for highest things are better than first
things: for although first things precede in time, highest
things excel by dignity.”

Now this would have been rightly said had the first parts
of things which are done been distinguished from the highest
parts ; as, for instance, it is the beginning of a thing done to
set out, the highest part to arrive. The commencing to learn
is the first part of a thing begun, the acquirement of know-
ledge is the highest part. And so of all things : the begin-
nings are first, the ends highest. This matter, however, has
been already discussed in connection with Janus and Terminus.
But the causes which are attributed to Jupiter are things effect-
ing, not things effected ; and it is impossible for them to be
prevented in time by things which are made or done, or by
the beginnings of such things ; for the thing which makes is
always prior to the thing which is made. Therefore, though
the beginnings of things which are made or done pertain to
Janus, they are nevertheless not prior to the efficient causes
which they attribute to Jupiter. For as nothing takes place
without being preceded by an efficient cause, so without an
efficient cause nothing begins to take place. Verily, if the
people call this god Jupiter, in whose power are all the causes
of all natures which have been made, and of all natural things,
and worship him with such insults and infamous criminations,
they are guilty of more shocking sacrilege than if they should
totally deny the existence of any god. It would therefore
be better for them to call some other god by the name of
Jupiter — some one worthy of base and criminal honours ; .
substituting instead of Jupiter some vain fiction (as Saturn is
said to have had a stone given to him to devour instead of his
son), which they might make the subject of their blasphemies,
rather than speak of that god as both thundering and commit-
ting adultery, — ruling the whole world, and laying himself out
for the commission of so many licentious acts, — having in his
1 Summa, which also includes the meaning “ last’*

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power nature and the highest causes of all natural things, hut
not having his own causes good.

Next, I ask what place they find any longer for this Jupiter
among the gods, if Janus is the world ; for Yarro defined the
true gods to be the soul of the world, and the parts of it And
therefore whatever falls not within this definition, is certainly
not a true god, according to them. Will they then say that
Jupiter is the soul of the world, and Janus the body — that is,
this visible world ? If they say this, it will not be possible
for them to affirm that Janus is a god. For even, according
to them, the body of the world is not a god, but the soul of
the world and its parts. Wherefore Yarro, seeing this, says
that he thinks God is the soul of the world, and that this
world itself is God ; but that as a wise man, though he con-
sists of soul and body, is nevertheless called wise from the
soul, so the world is called God from the soul, though it
consists of soul and body. Therefore the body of the world
alone is not God, but either the soul of it alone, or the soul
and the body together, yet so as that it is God not by virtue
of the body, but by virtue of the soul. If, therefore, Janus
is the world, and Janus is a god, will they say, in order that
Jupiter may be a god, that he is some part of Janus ? For
they are wont rather to attribute universal existence to
Jupiter; whence the saying, "All things are full of Jupiter.”1
Therefore they must think Jupiter also, in order that he may
be a god, and especially king of the gods, to be the world, that
he may rule over the other gods — according to them, his parts.
To this effect, also, the same Varro expounds certain verses
of Valerius Soranus 2 in that book which he wrote apart from
the others concerning the worship of the gods. These are the
verses :

“Almighty Jove, progenitor of kings, and things, and gods,

And eke the mother of the gods, god one and all.”

But in the same book he expounds these verses by saying that
as the male emits seed, and the female receives it, so Jupiter,
whom they believed to be the world, both emits all seeds from

1 Virgil, Edog. iii. 60, who borrows the expression from the Phenomena of
Aratus.

* Soranus lived about b.c. 100. See Smith’s Diet.

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himself and receives them. into himself. For which reason, he
says, Soranus wrote, " Jove, progenitor and mother ;” and with
no less reason said that one and all were the same. For the
world is one, and in that one are all things.

10. Whether the distinction between Janus and Jupiter is a proper one .

Since, therefore, Janus is the world, and Jupiter is the world,
wherefore are Janus and Jupiter two gods, while the world is
but one ? Why do they have separate temples, separate altars,
different rites, dissimilar images ? If it be because the nature
of beginnings is one, and the nature of causes another, and the
one has received the name of Janus, the other of Jupiter; is
it then the case, that if one man has two distinct offices of
authority, or two arts, two judges or two artificers are spoken
of, because the nature of the offices or the arts is different ?
So also with respect to one god : if he have the power of
beginnings and of causes, must he therefore be thought to be
two gods, because beginnings and causes are two things ? But
ii they think that this is right, let them also affirm that Jupiter
is as many gods as they have given him surnames, on account
of many powers ; for the things from which these surnames
are applied to him are many and diverse. I shall mention a
few of them.

11. Concerning the surnames of Jupiter , which are referred not to many gods ,
but to one and the same god.

They have called him Victor, Invictus, Opitulus, Impulsor,
Stator, Centumpeda, Supinalis, Tigillus, Almus, Buminus, and
other names which it were long to enumerate. But these
surnames they have given to one god on account of diverse
causes and powers, but yet have not compelled him to be, on
account of so many things, as many gods. They gave him
these surnames because he conquered all things ; because he
was conquered by none ; because he brought help to the needy;
because he had the power of impelling, stopping, stablishing,
throwing on the back ; because as a beam 1 he held together
and sustained the world; because he nourished all things;
because, like the pap,8 he nourished animals. Here, we per-
ceive, are some great things and some small things ; and yet
1 Tigillus. * Roma.

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it is one who is said to perform them all I think that the
causes and the beginnings of things, on account of which they
have thought that the one world is two gods, Jupiter and
Janus, are nearer to each other than the holding together of
the world, and the giving of the pap to animals ; and yet, on
account of these two works so far apart from each other, both
in nature and dignity, there has not been any necessity for
the existence of two gods; but one Jupiter has been called,
on account of the one Tigillus, on account of the other
Ruminus. I am unwilling to say that the giving of the pap
to sucking animals might have become Juno rather than
Jupiter, especially when there was the goddess Rumina to
help and to serve her in this work ; for I think it may be
replied that Juno herself is nothing else than Jupiter, accord-
ing to those verses of Valerius Soranus, where it has been
said:

“ Almighty Jove, progenitor of kings, and things, and gods,

And eke the mother of the gods,” etc.

Why, then, was he called Ruminus, when they who may per-
chance inquire more diligently may find that he is also that
goddess Rumina ?

If, then, it was rightly thought unworthy of the majesty of
the gods, that in one ear of com one god should have the care
of the joint, another that of the husk, how much more un-
worthy of that majesty is it, that one thing, and that of the
lowest kind, even the giving of the pap to animals that they
may be nourished, should be under the care of two gods, one
of whom is Jupiter himself, the very king of all things, who
does this not along with his own wife, but with some ignoble
Rumina (unless perhaps he himself is Rumina, being Ruminus
for males and Rumina for females) ! I should certainly have
said that they had been unwilling to apply to Jupiter a
feminine name, had he not been styled in these verses “ pro-
genitor and mother,” and had I not read among other sur-
names of his that of Pecunia [money], which we found as a
goddess among those petty deities, as I have already mentioned
in the fourth book. But since both males and females have
money [pecuniam ], why has he not been called both Pecunius
and Pecunia ? That is their concern.

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12. That Jupiter is also called Pecunia.

How elegantly they have accounted for this name ! “ He

is also called Pecunia,” say they, “ because all things belong
to him” Oh how grand an explanation of the name of a
deity ! Yes ; he to whom all things belong is most meanly
and most contumeliously called Pecunia. In comparison of all
things which are contained by heaven and earth, what are all
things together which are possessed by men under the name
of money ?* And this name, forsooth, hath avarice given to
Jupiter, that whoever was a lover of money might seem to
himself to love not an ordinary god, but the very king of all
things himself. But it would be a far different thing if he had
been called Riches. For riches are one thing, money another.
For we call rich the wise, the just, the good, who have either
no money or very little. * For they are more truly rich in
possessing virtue, since by it, even as respects things necessary
for the body, they are content with what they have. But we
call the greedy poor, who are always craving and always want-
ing. For they may possess ever so great an amount of money ;
but whatever be the abundance of that, they are not able
but to want. And we properly call God Himself rich ; not,
however, in money, but in omnipotence. Therefore they who
have abundance of money are called rich, but inwardly needy
if they are greedy. So also, those who have no money are
called poor, but inwardly rich if they are wise.

What, then, ought the wise man to think of this theology,
in which the king of the gods receives the name of that thing
“ which no wise man has desired ? ”a For had there been any-
thing wholesomely taught by this philosophy concerning eternal
life, how much more appropriately would that god who is the
ruler of the world have been called by them, not money, but
wisdom, the love of which purges from the filth of avarice, that
is, of the love of money !

13. That when it is expounded what Saturn is, what Genius is, it comes to
this, that both of them are shown to be Jupiter .

But why speak more of this Jupiter, with whom perchance

1 “Pecunia,” that is, property; the original meaning of “pecunia” being
property in cattle, then property or wealth of any kind. Comp. Augustine,
I>e disdpL Christ 6. 1 Sallust, CaUL c. 11.

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all the rest are to be identified; so that, he being all, the
opinion as to the existence of many gods may remain as a
mere opinion, empty of all truth ? And they are all to be
referred to him, if his various parts and powers are thought
of as so many gods, or if the principle of mind which they
think to be diffused through all things has received the names
of many gods from the various parts which the mass of this
visible world combines in itself, and from the manifold admi-
nistration of nature. For what is Saturn also ? “ One of the

principal gods,” he says, “ who has dominion over all sowings.”
Does not the exposition of the verses of Valerius Soranus
teach that Jupiter is the world, and that he emits all seeds
from himself, and receives them into himself ?

It is he, then, with whom is the dominion of all sowings.
What is Genius ? "He is the god who is set over, and has
the power of begetting, all things.” Who else than the world
do they believe to have this power, to which it has been said ;

“ Almighty Jove, progenitor and mother?’*

And when in another place he says that Genius is the
rational soul of every one, and therefore exists separately in
each individual, but that the corresponding soul of the world
is God, he just comes back to this same thing, — namely, that
the soul of the world itself is to be held to be, as it were, the
universal genius. This, therefore, is what he calls Jupiter.
For if every genius is a god, and the soul of every man a
genius, it follows that the soul of every man is a god. But if
very absurdity compels even these theologists themselves to
shrink from this, it remains that they call that genius god by
special and pre-eminent distinction, whom they call the soul
of the world, and therefore Jupiter.

14. Concerning the offices of Mercury and Mare.

But they have not found how to refer Mercury and Mars
to any parts of the world, and to the works of God which are
in the elements ; and therefore they have set them at least
over human works, making them assistants in speaking and in
carrying on wars. Now Mercury, if he has also the power of
the speech of the gods, rules also over the king of the gods him-

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self, if Jupiter, as he receives from him the faculty of speech,
also speaks according as it is his pleasure to permit him —
which surely is absurd ; but if it is only the power over human
speech which is held to be attributed to him, then we say
it is incredible that Jupiter should have condescended to give
the pap not only to children, but also to beasts — from which
he has been sumamed Kuminus — and yet should have been
unwilling that the care of our speech, by which we excel the
beasts, should pertain to him. And thus speech itself both
belongs to Jupiter, and is Mercury. But if speech itself is
said to be Mercury, as those things which are said concerning
him by way of interpretation show it to be ; — for he is said
to have been called Mercury, that is, he who runs between,1
because speech runs between men : they say also that the
Greeks call him rEpp,i] 9, because speech, or interpretation, which
certainly belongs to speech, is called by them epfirjveia : also
he is said to preside over payments, because speech passes
between sellers and buyers : the wings, too, which he has on
his head and on his feet, they say, mean that speech passes
winged through the air : he is also said to have been called
the messenger,2 because by means of speech all our thoughts
are expressed ;s — if, therefore, speech itself is Mercury, then,
even by their own confession, he is not a god. But when
they make to themselves gods of such as are not even demons,
by praying to unclean spirits, they are possessed by such as
are not gods, but demons. In like manner, because they have
not been able to find for Mars any element or part of the
world in which he might perform some works of nature of
whatever kind, they have said that he is the god of war,
which is a work of men, and that not one which is considered
desirable by them. If, therefore, Felicitas should give per-
petual peace, Mars would have nothing to do. But if war
itself is Mars, as speech is Mercury, I wish it were as true
that there were no war to be falsely called a god, as it is true
that it is not a god.

15. Concerning certain stars which the pagans have called by the names
0/ their gods.

But possibly these stars which have been called by their

1 Quasi medius currens. * Nimeius. * Enunciantur.

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names are these gods. For they call a certain star Mercury,
and likewise a certain other star Mars. But among those
stars which are called by the names of gods, is that one which
they call Jupiter, and yet with them Jupiter is the world.
There also is that one they call Saturn, and yet they give to
him no small property besides, — namely, all seeds. There also
is that brightest of them all which is called by them Venus,
and yet they will have this same Venus to be also the moon :
— not to mention how Venus and Juno are said by them to
contend about that most brilliant star, as though about another
golden appla For some say that Lucifer belongs to Venus, and
some to Juno. But, as usual, Venus conquers. For by far the
greatest number assign that star to Venus, so much so that
there is scarcely found one of them who thinks otherwise.
But since they call Jupiter the king of all, who will not laugh to
see his star so far surpassed in brilliancy by the star of Venus ?
For it ought to have been as much more brilliant than the
rest, as he himself is more powerful They answer that it
only appears so because it is higher up, and very much farther
away from the earth. If, therefore, its greater dignity has
deserved a higher place, why is Saturn higher in the heavens
than Jupiter? Was the vanity of the fable which made
Jupiter king not able to reach the stars ? And has Saturn
been permitted to obtain at least in the heavens, what he
could not obtain in his own kingdom nor in the Capitol ?

But why has Janus received no star ? If it is because he
is the world, and they are all in him, the world is also
Jupiter’s, and yet he has ona Did Janus compromise his case
as best he could, and instead of the one star which he does
not have among the heavenly bodies, accept so many faces
on earth ? Again, if they think that on account of the stars
alone Mercury and Mars are parts of the world, in order that
they may be able to have them for gods, since speech and
war are not parts of the world, but acts of men, how is it
that they have made no altars, established no rites, built
no temples for Aries, and Taurus, and Cancer, and Scorpio,
and the rest which they number as the celestial signs, and
which consist not of single stars, but each of them of many
stars, which also they say are situated above those already

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mentioned in the highest part of the heavens, where a more
constant motion causes the stars to follpw an undeviating
course ? And why have they not reckoned them as gods, I
do not say among those select gods, but not even among
those, as it were, plebeian gods ?

16. Concerning Apollo and Diana , and the other select gods whom they would
have to be parts qf the world .

Although they would have Apollo to be a diviner and
physician, they have nevertheless given him a place as some
part of the world. They have said that he is also the sun ;
and likewise they have said that Diana, his sister, is the
moon, and the guardian of roads. Whence also they will
have her be a virgin, because a road brings forth nothing.
They also make both of them have arrows, because those
two planets send their rays from the heavens to the earth.
They make Vulcan to be the fire of the world ; Neptune the
waters of the world ; Father Dis, that is, Orcus, the earthy
and lowest part of the world. Liber and Ceres they set over
seeds, — the former over the seeds of males, the latter over
the seeds of females ; or the one over the fluid part of seed,
but the other over the dry part And all this together is
referred to the world, that is, to Jupiter, who is called “pro-
genitor and mother,” because he emitted all seeds from him-
self, and received them into himself For they also make
this same Ceres to be the Great Mother, who they say is
none other than the earth, and call her also Juno. And
therefore they assign to her the second causes of things,
notwithstanding that it has been said to Jupiter, “ progenitor
and mother of the gods;” because, according to them, the
whole world itself is Jupiter's. Minerva, also, because they
set her over human arts, and did not find even a star in
which to place her, has been said by them to be either the
highest aether, or even the moon. Also Vesta herself they
have thought to be the highest of the goddesses, because she
is the earth; although they have thought that the milder
fire of the world, which is used for the ordinary purposes
of human life, not the more violent fire, such as belongs to
Vulcan, is to be assigned to her. And thus they will have
all those select gods to be the world and its parts, — some of

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them the whole world, others of them its parts ; the whole
of it Jupiter, — its parts, Genius, Mater Magna, Sol and Luna,
or rather Apollo and Diana, and so on. And sometimes they
make one god many things ; sometimes one thing many gods.
Many things are one god in the case of Jupiter ; for both the
whole world is Jupiter, and the sky alone is Jupiter, and the
star alone is said and held to be Jupiter. Juno also is mis-
tress. of second causes, — Juno is the air, Juno is the earth ;
and had she won it over Venus, Juno would have been the
star. Likewise Minerva is the highest aether, and Minerva
is likewise the moon, which they suppose to be in the lowest
limit of the aether. And also they make one thing many
gods in this way. The world is both Janus and Jupiter;
also the earth is Juno, and Mater Magna, and Ceres.

17. That even Varro himself pronounced his own opinions regarding the gods

ambiguous.

And the same is true with respect to all the rest, as is true
with respect to those things which I have mentioned for the
sake of example. They do not explain them, but rather
involve them. They rush hither and thither, to this side or
to that, according as they are driven by the impulse of erratic
opinion; so that even Varro himself has chosen rather to
doubt concerning all things, than to affirm anything. For,
having written the first of the three last books concerning
the certain gods, and having commenced in the second of
these to speak of the uncertain gods, he says : * I ought not
to be censured for having stated in this book the doubtful
opinions concerning the gods. For he who, when he has
read them, shall think that they both ought to be, and can be,
conclusively judged of, will do so himselfi For my own part,
I can be more easily led to doubt the things which I have
written in the first book, than to attempt to reduce all the
things I shall write in this one to any orderly system.” Thus
he makes uncertain not only that book concerning the un-
certain gods, but also that other concerning the certain gods.
Moreover, in that third book concerning the select gods, after
having exhibited by anticipation as much of the natural theo-
logy as he deemed necessary, and when about to commence

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to speak of the vanities and lying insanities of the civil
theology, where he was not only without the guidance of the
truth of things, but was also pressed by the authority of
tradition, he says : “ I will write in this book concerning the
public gods of the Roman people, to whom they have dedi-
cated temples, and whom they have conspicuously distin-
guished by many adornments ; but, as Xenophon of Colophon
writes, I will state what I think, not what I am prepared
to maintain : it is for man to think those things, for God to
know them”

It is not, then, an account of things comprehended and
most certainly believed which he promised, when about to
write those things which were instituted by men. He only
timidly promises an account of things which are but the
subject of doubtful opinion. Nor, indeed, was it possible for
him to affirm with the same certainty that Janus was the
world, and such like things ; or to discover with the same
certainty such things as how Jupiter was the son of Saturn,
while Saturn was made subject to him as king : — he could,
I say, neither affirm nor discover such things with the
same certainty with which he knew such things as that the
world existed, that the heavens and earth existed, the heavens
bright with stars, and the earth fertile through seeds ; or with
the same perfect conviction with which he believed that this
universal mass of nature is governed and administered by a
certain invisible and mighty force.

18. A more credible cause of the rise of pagan error .

A far more credible account of these gods is given, when it
it said that they were men, and that to each one of them
sacred rites and solemnities were instituted, according to his
particular genius, manners, actions, circumstances; which
rites and solemnities, by gradually creeping through the souls
of men, which are like demons, and eager for things which
yield them sport, were spread far and wide ; the poets adorn-
ing them with lies, and false spirits seducing men to receive
them. Tor it is far more likely that some youth, either im-
pious himself, or afraid of being slain by an impious father,
being desirous to reign, dethroned his father, than that (ac-

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cording to Varro’s interpretation) Saturn was overthrown by
his son Jupiter ; for cause, which belongs to Jupiter, is before
seed, which belongs to Saturn. For had this been so, Saturn
would never have been before Jupiter, nor would he have
been the father of Jupiter. For cause always precedes seed,
and is never generated from seed. But when they seek to
honour by natural interpretation most vain fables or deeds
of men, even the acutest men are so perplexed that we are
compelled to grieve for their folly also.

19. Concerning the interpretcUions which compose the reason of the worship
qf Saturn.

They said, says Varro, that Saturn was wont to devour all
that sprang from him, because seeds returned to the earth
from whence they sprang. And when it is said that a lump
of earth was put before Saturn to be devoured instead of
Jupiter, it is signified, he says, that before the art of plough-
ing was discovered, seeds were buried in the earth by the
hands of men. The earth itself, then, and not seeds, should
have been called Saturn, because it in a manner devours what
it has brought forth, when the seeds which have sprung from
it return again into it And what has Saturn’s receiving of
a lump of earth instead of Jupiter to do with this, that the
seeds were covered in the soil by the hands of men ? Was
the seed kept from being devoured, like other things, by being
covered with the soil ? For what they say would imply that
he who put on the soil took away the seed, as Jupiter is said
to have been taken away when the lump of soil was offered
to Saturn instead of him, and not rather that the soil, by
covering the seed, only caused it to be devoured the more
eagerly. Then, in that way, Jupiter is the seed, and not the
cause of the seed, as was said a little before.

But what shall men do who cannot find anything wise to
say, because they are interpreting foolish things ? Saturn
has a pruning-knife. That, says Varro, is on account of
agriculture. Certainly in Saturn’s reign there as yet existed
no agriculture, and therefore the former times of Saturn are
spoken of, because, as the same Varro interprets the fables,
the primeval men lived on those seeds which the earth pro-
duced spontaneously. Perhaps he received a pruning-knife

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when he had lost his sceptre ; that he who had been a king,
and lived at ease during the first part of his time, should
become a laborious workman whilst his son occupied the
throne. Then he says that boys were wont to be immolated
to him by certain peoples, the Carthaginians for instance;
and also that adults were immolated by some nations, for
example the Gauls — because, of all seeds, the human race
is the best. What need we say more concerning this most
cruel vanity ? Let us rather attend to and hold by this, that
these interpretations are not carried up to the true God, — a
living, incorporeal, unchangeable nature, from whom a blessed
life enduring for ever may be obtained, — but that they end
in things which are corporeal, temporal, mutable, and mortal.
And whereas it is said in the fables that Saturn castrated
his father Ccelus, this signifies, says Yarro, that the divine
seed belongs to Saturn, and not to Ccelus ; for this reason,
as far as a reason can be discovered, namely, that in heaven1
nothing is born from seed. But, lo ! Saturn, if he is the son
of Ccelus, is the son of Jupiter. For they affirm times with-
out number, and that emphatically, that the heavens2 are
Jupiter. Thus those things which come not of the truth, do
very often, without being impelled by any one, themselves
overthrow one another. He says that Saturn was called
Kpovos, which in the Greek tongue signifies a space of time,8
because, without that, seed cannot be productive. These and
many other things are said concerning Saturn, and they are
all referred to seed. But Saturn surely, with all that great
power, might have sufficed for seed. Why are other gods
demanded for it, especially liber and Libera, that is, Ceres ?
— concerning whom again, as far as seed is concerned, he
says as many things as if he had said nothing concerning
Saturn.

20. Concerning the rites qf Eleusmian Ceres.

Now among the rites of Ceres, those Eleusinian rites are
much famed which were in the highest repute among the
Athenians, of which Yarro offers no interpretation except
with respect to com, which Ceres discovered, and with respect
to Proserpine, whom Ceres lost, Orcus having carried her
J Coelo. * Coelom. 8 Sc.

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away. And this Proserpine herself, he says, signifies the
fecundity of seeds. But as this fecundity departed at a
certain season, whilst the earth wore an aspect of sorrow
through the consequent sterility, there arose an opinion that
the daughter of Ceres, that is, fecundity itself, who was called
Proserpine, from proserperc (to creep forth, to spring), had
been carried away by Orcus, and detained among the inhabit-
ants of the nether world ; which circumstance wa3 celebrated
with public mourning. But since the same fecundity again
returned, there arose joy because Proserpine had been given
back by Orcus, and thus these rites were instituted. Then
Varro adds, that many things are taught in the mysteries of
Ceres which only refer to the discovery of fruits.

21. Concerning the eham^ulmm of the rites which cure celebrated in honour

qf Liber.

Now as to the rites of Liber, whom they have set over
liquid seeds, and therefore not only over the liquors of fruits,
among which wine holds, so to speak, the primacy, but also
over the seeds of animals : — as to these rites, I am unwilling
to undertake to show to what excess of turpitude they had
reached, because that would entail a lengthened discourse,
though I am not unwilling to do so as a demonstration of the
proud stupidity of those who practise them. Among other
rites which I am compelled from the greatness of their number
to omit, Varro says that in Italy, at the places where roads
crossed each other, the rites of Liber were celebrated with
such unrestrained turpitude, that the private parts of a man
were worshipped in his honour. Nor was this abomination
transacted in secret, that some regard at least might be paid
to modesty, but was openly and wantonly displayed. For
during the festival of Liber, this obscene member, placed on
a car, was carried with great honour, first over the cross-roads
in the country, and then into the city. But in the town of
Lavinium a whole month was devoted to Liber alone, during
the days of which all the people gave themselves up to the
most dissolute conversation, until that member had been
carried through the forum and brought to rest in its own
place; on which unseemly member it was necessary that

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the most honourable matron should place a wreath in the
presence oi all the people. Thus, forsooth, was the god liber
to be appeased in order to the growth of seeds. Thus was
enchantment to be driven away from fields, even by a matron's
being compelled to do in public what not even a harlot ought
to be permitted to do in a theatre, if there were matrons
among the spectators. For these reasons, then, Saturn alone
was not believed to be sufficient for seeds, — namely, that the
impure mind might find occasions for multiplying the gods;
and that, being righteously abandoned to uncleanness by the
one true God, and being prostituted to the worship of many
false gods, through an avidity for ever greater and greater
uncleanness, it should call these sacrilegious rites sacred
things, and should abandon itself to be violated and polluted
by crowds of foul demons.

22. Concerning Neptune, and Salacia, and Venilia.

Now Neptune had Salacia to wife, who they say is the
nether waters of the sea. Wherefore was Venilia also joined
to him ? Was it not simply through the lust of the soul
desiring a greater number of demons to whom to prostitute
itself, and not because this goddess was necessary to the per-
fection of their sacred rites? But let the interpretation of this
illustrious theology be brought forward to restrain us from
this censuring by rendering a satisfactory reason. Venilia,
says this theology, is the wave which comes to the shore,
Salacia the wave which returns into the sea. Why, then, are
there two goddesses, when it is one wave which comes and
returns ? Certainly it is mad lust itself, which in its eager-
ness for many deities resembles the waves which break on the
shore. For though the water which goes is not different from
that which returns, still the soul which goes and returns not
is defiled by two demons, whom it has taken occasion by this
false pretext to invite. I ask thee, 0 Varro, and you who
have read such works of learned men, and think ye have
learned something great, — I ask you to interpret this, I do not
say in a manner consistent with the eternal and unchangeable
nature which alone is God, but only in a manner consistent
with the doctrine concerning the soul of the world and its

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parts, which ye think to be the true gods. It is a somewhat
more tolerable thing that ye have made that part of the soul
of the world which pervades the sea your god Neptune. Is
the wave, then, which comes to the shore and returns to the
main, two parts of the world, or two parts of the soul of the
world ? Who of you is so silly as to think so ? Why, then,
have they made to you two goddesses ? The only reason
seems to be, that your wise ancestors have provided, not that
many gods should rule you, but that many of such demons as
are delighted with those vanities and falsehoods should possess
you. But why has that Salacia, according to this interpreta-
tion, lost the lower part of the sea, seeing that she was repre-
sented as subject to her husband ? For in saying that she
is the receding wave, ye have put her on the surface. Was
she enraged at her husband for taking Venilia as a concubine,'
and thus drove him from the upper part of the sea ?

23. Concerning Vie earth, which Varro affirms to he a goddess, because that soul
of the world which he thinks to be Ood pervades also this lowest part qf
Ids body , and imparts to it a divine force.

Surely the earth, which we see full of its own living crea-
tures, is one ; but for all that, it is but a mighty mass among
the elements, and the lowest part of the world. Why, then,
would they have it to be a goddess ? Is it because it is fruit-
ful ? Why, then, are not men rather held to be gods, who
render it fruitful by cultivating it ; but though they plough
it, do not adore it ? But, say they, the part of the soul of the
world which pervades it makes it a goddess. As if it were
not a far more evident thing, nay, a thing which is not called
in question, that there is a soul in man. And yet men are
not held to be gods, but (a thing to be sadly lamented), with
wonderful and pitiful delusion, are subjected to those who are
not gods, and than whom they themselves are better, as the
objects of deserved worship and adoration. And certainly the
same Varro, in the book concerning the select gods, affirms
that there are three grades of soul in universal nature. One
which pervades all the living parts of the body, and has not
sensation, but only the power of life, — that principle which
penetrates into the bones, nails, and hair. By this principle
in the world trees are nourished, and grow without being pos-

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8essed of sensation, and liye in a manner peculiar to them-
selves. The second grade of soul is that in which there is
sensation. This principle penetrates into the eyes, ears,
nostrils, mouth, and the organs of sensation. The third grade
of soul is the highest, and is called mind, where intelligence
has its throne. This grade of soul no mortal creatures except
man are possessed ot Now this part of the soul of the world,
Varro says, is called God, and in us is called Genius. And the
stones and earth in the world, which we see, and which are
not pervaded by the power of sensation, are, as it were, the
bones and nails of God. Again, the sun, moon, and stars,
which we perceive, and by which He perceives, are His organs
of perception. Moreover, the ether is His mind ; and by the
virtue which is in it, which penetrates into the stars, it also
makes them gods; and because it penetrates through them
into the earth, it makes it the goddess Tellus, whence again it
enters and permeates the sea and ocean, making them the god
Neptune.

Let him return from this, which he thinks to be natural
theology, back to that from which he went out, in order
to rest from the fatigue occasioned by the many turnings and
windings of his path. Let him return, I say, let him re-
turn to the civil theology. I wish to detain him there a
while. I have somewhat to say which has to do with that
theology. I am not yet saying, that if the earth and stones
are similar to our bones and nails, they are in like manner
devoid of intelligence, as they are devoid of sensation. Nor
am I saying that, if our bones and nails are said to have in-
telligence, because they are in a man who has intelligence, he
who says that the things analogous to these in the world are
gods, is as stupid as he is who says that our bones and nails
are men. We shall perhaps have occasion to dispute these
things with the philosophers. At present, however, I wish to
deal with Varro as a political theologian. For it is possible
that, though he may seem to have wished to lift up his head,
as it were, into the liberty of natural theology, the conscious-
ness that the book with which he was occupied was one con-
cerning a subject belonging to civil theology, may have caused
him to relapse into the point of view of that theology, and to

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say this in order that the ancestors of his nation, and other
states, might not be believed to have bestowed on Neptune an
irrational worship. What I am to say is this : Since the earth
is one, why has not that part of the soul of the world which
permeates the earth made it that one goddess which he calls
Tellus ? But had it done so, what then had become of Orcus,
the brother of Jupiter and Neptune, whom they call Father
Dis ? 1 And where, in that case, had been his wife Proserpine,
who, according to another opinion given in the same book, is
called, not the fecundity of the earth, but its lower part ?*
But if they say that part of the soul of the world, when it
permeates the upper part of the earth, makes the god Father
Dis, but when it pervades the nether part of the same the
goddess Proserpine ; what, in that case, will that Tellus be ?
For all that which she was has been divided into these two
parts, and these two gods ; so that it is impossible to find
what to make or where to place her as a third goddess, except
it be said that those divinities Orcus and Proserpine are the
one goddess Tellus, and that they are not three gods, but one
or two, whilst notwithstanding they are called three, held to
be three, worshipped as three, having their Own several altars,
their own shrines, rites, images, priests, whilst their own false
demons also through these things defile the prostituted soul
Let this further question be answered : What part of the earth
does a part of the soul of the world permeate in order to make
the god Tellumo ? No, says he ; but the earth being one and
the same, has a double life, — the masculine, which produces
seed, and the feminine, which receives and nourishes the seed.
Hence it has been called Tellus from the feminine principle,
and Tellumo from the masculine. Why, then, do the priests,
as he indicates, perform divine service to four gods, two others
being added, — namely, to Tellus, Tellumo, Altor, and Rusor ?
We have already spoken concerning Tellus and Tellumo. But
why do they worship Altor?* Because, says he, all that
springs of the earth is nourished by the earth. Wherefore
do they worship Rusor ?4 Because all things return back
again to the place whence they proceeded.

1 See c. 16. 2 Varro, De Ling, Lot, y. 68.

3 Noumher. 4 Returner. '

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24. Concerning the surnames of Tellus and their significations , which, although
they indicate many properties , ought not to have established the opinion
that there is a corresponding number of gods.

The one earth, then, on account of this fourfold virtue,
ought to have had four surnames, but not to have been con-
sidered as four gods, — as Jupiter and Juno, though they have
so many surnames, are for all that only single deities, — for by
all these surnames it is signified that a manifold virtue be-
longs to one god or to one goddess ; but the multitude of sur-
names does not imply a multitude of gods. But as sometimes
even the vilest women themselves grow tired of those crowds
which they have sought after under the impulse of wicked
passion, so also the soul, become vile, and prostituted to im-
pure spirits, sometimes begins to loathe to multiply to itself
gods to whom to surrender itself to be polluted by them, as
much as it once delighted in so doing. For Varro himself,
as if ashamed of that crowd of gods, would make Tellus to be
one goddess. "They say,” says he, "that whereas the one
great mother has a tympanum, it is signified that she is the
orb of the earth ; whereas she has towers on her head, towns
are signified ; and whereas seats are fixed round about her, it
is signified that whilst all things move, she moves not. And
their having made the Galli to serve this goddess, signifies
that they who are in need of seed ought to follow the earth,
for in it all seeds are found. By their throwing themselves
down before her, it is taught,” he says, " that they who culti-
vate the earth should not sit idle, for there is always some-
thing for them to do. The sound of the cymbals signifies the
noise made by the throwing of iron utensils, and by men’s
hands, and all other noises connected with agricultural opera-
tions ; and these cymbals are of brass, because the ancients
used brazen utensils in their agriculture before iron was dis-
covered. They place beside the goddess an unbound and
tame lion, to show that there is no kind of land so wild and
so excessively barren as that it would be profitless to attempt
to bring it in and cultivate it” Then he adds that, because
they gave many names and surnames to mother Tellus, it
came to be thought that these signified many gods. " They
think,” says he, " that Tellus is Ops, because the earth is im-

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proved by labour; Mother, because it brings forth much;
Great, because it brings forth seed ; Proseipine, because fruits
creep forth from it ; Vesta, because it is invested with herbs.
And thus,” says he, * they not at all absurdly identify other
goddesses with the earth.” If, then, it is one goddess (though,
if the truth were consulted, it is not even that), why do they
nevertheless separate it into many? Let there be many
names of one goddess, and let there not be as many goddesses
as there are names.

But the authority of the erring ancients weighs heavily on
Varro, and compels him, after having expressed this opinion,
to show signs of uneasiness ; for he immediately adds,
“ With which things the opinion of the ancients, who thought
that there were really many goddesses, does not conflict.”
How does it not conflict, when it is entirely a different thing
to say that one goddess has many names, and to say that
there are many goddesses ? But it is possible, he says, that
the same thing may both be one, and yet have in it a plurality
of things. I grant that there are many things in one man ;
are there therefore in him many men ? In like manner, in
one goddess there are many things ; are there therefore also
many goddesses ? But let them divide, unite, multiply, re-
duplicate, and implicate as they like.

These are the famous mysteries of Tellus and the Great
Mother, all of which are shown to have reference to mortal
seeds and to agriculture. Do these things, then, — namely,
the tympanum, the towers, the Galli, the tossing to and fro
of limbs, the noise of cymbals, the images of lions, — do . these
things, having this reference and this end, promise eternal
life ? Do the mutilated Galli, then, serve this Great Mother
in order to signify that they who are in need of seed should
follow the earth, as though it were not rather the case that
this very service caused them to want seed ? For whether do
they, by following this goddess, acquire seed, being in want of
it, or, by following her, lose seed when they have it ? Is this
to interpret or to deprecate ? Nor is it considered to what a
degree malign demons have gained the upper hand, inasmuch
as they have been able to exact such cruel rites without having
dared to promise any great things in return for them. Had

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the earth not been a goddess, men would have, by labouring,
laid their hands on it in order to obtain seed through it, and
would not have laid violent hands on themselves in order to
lose seed on account of it. Had it not been a goddess, it
would have become so fertile by the hands of others, that it
would not have compelled a man to be rendered barren by
his own hands ; nor that in the festival of Liber an honour-
able matron put a wreath on the private parts of a man in
the sight of the multitude, where perhaps her husband was
standing by blushing and perspiring, if there is any shame left
in men ; and that in the celebration of marriages the newly-
married bride was ordered to sit upon Priapus. These things
are bad enough, but they are small and contemptible in com-
parison with that most cruel abomination, or most abominable
cruelty, by which either set is so deluded that neither perishes
of its wound. There the enchantment of fields is feared ; here
the amputation of members is not feared. There the modesty
of the bride is outraged, but in such a manner as that neither
her fruitfulness nor even her virginity is taken away ; here
a man is so mutilated that he is neither changed into a woman
nor remains a man.

25. The interpretation of t he mutilation of Atys which the doctrine of the
Greek sages set forth,

Varro has not spoken of that Atys, nor sought out any
interpretation for him, in memory of whose being loved by
Ceres the Gallus is mutilated. But the learned and wise
Greeks have by no means been silent about an interpretation
so hotly and so illustrious. The celebrated philosopher Por-
phyry has said that Atys signifies the flowers of spring, which
is the most beautiful season, and therefore was mutilated
because the flower falls before the fruit appears.1 They
have not, then, compared the man himself, or rather that
semblance of a man they called Atys, to the flower, but his
male organs, — these, indeed, fell whilst he was living. Did
I say fell ? nay, truly they did not fall, nor were they plucked
off, but tom away. Nor when that flower was lost did any
fruit follow, but rather sterility. What, then, do they say
is signified by the castrated Atys himself, and whatever re-
1 In the book De Rations Natural i Deorum,

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mained to him after his castration ? To what do they refer
that ? What interpretation does that give rise to ? Do they,
after vain endeavours to discover an interpretation, seek to
persuade men that that is rather to be believed which report
has made public, and which has also been written concerning
his having been a mutilated man ? Our Varro has very pro-
perly opposed this, and has been unwilling to state it; for it
certainly was not unknown to that most learned man.

26. Concerning the abomination of the sacred rites of the Great Mother .

Concerning the effeminates consecrated to the same Great
Mother, in defiance of all the modesty which belongs to men
and women, Varro has not wished to say anything, nor do I
remember to have read anywhere aught concerning them.
These effeminates, no later than yesterday, were going through
the streets and places of Carthage with anointed hair, whitened
faces, relaxed bodies, and feminine gait, exacting from the
people the means of maintaining their ignominious lives.
Nothing has been said concerning them. Interpretation
failed, reason blushed, speech was silent. The Great Mother
has surpassed all her sons, not in greatness of deity, but of
crime. To this monster not even the monstrosity of Janus is
to be compared. His deformity was only in his image; hers
was the deformity of cruelty in her sacred rites. He has a
redundancy of members in stone images ; she inflicts the loss
of members on men. This abomination is not surpassed by
the licentious deeds of Jupiter, so many and so great. He,
with all his seductions of women, only disgraced heaven with
one Ganymede ; she, with so many avowed and public effemi-
nates, has both defiled the earth and outraged heaven. Per-
haps we may either compare Saturn to this Magna Mater, or
even set him before her in this kind of abominable cruelty,
for he mutilated his father. But at the festivals of Saturn
men could rather be slain by the hands of' others than muti-
lated by their own. He devoured his sons, as the poets say,
and the natural theologists inteipret this as they list. His-
tory says he slew them. But the Romans never received,
like the Carthaginians, the custom of sacrificing their sons to
him. This Great Mother of the gods, however, has brought

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mutilated men into Roman temples, and has preserved that
cruel custom, being believed to promote the strength of the
Romans by emasculating their men. Compared with this
evil, what are the thefts of Mercury, the wantonness of Venus,
and the base and flagitious deeds of the rest of them, which
we might bring forward from books, were it not that they are
daily sung and danced in the theatres ? But what are these
things to so great an evil, — an evil whose magnitude was only
proportioned to the greatness of the Great Mother, — espe-
cially as these are said to have been invented by the poets ?
as if the poets had also invented this, that they are accept-
able to the gods. Let it be imputed, then, to the audacity
and impudence of the poets that these things have been sung
and written of. But that they have been incorporated into
the body of divine rites and honours, the deities themselves
demanding and extorting that incorporation, what is that but
the crime of the gods ? nay more, the confession of demons
and the deception of wretched men? But as to this, that
the Great Mother is considered to be worshipped in the appro-
priate form when she is worshipped by the consecration of
mutilated men, this is not an invention of the poets, nay,
they have rather shrunk from it with horror than sung of it.
Ought any one, then, to be consecrated to these select gods,
that he may live blessedly after death, consecrated to whom
he could not live decently before death, being subjected to such
foul superstitions, and bound over to unclean demons ? But
all these things, says Varro, are to be referred to the world.1
Let him consider if it be not rather to the unclean.* But
why not refer that to the world which is demonstrated to be
in the world ? We, however, seek for a mind which, trusting
to true religion, does not adore the world as its god, but for
the sake of God praises the world as a work of God, and,
purified from mundane defilements, comes pure8 to God Him-
self who founded the world.4

27. Concerning the figments of the physical theologists , who neither worship the
true divinity , nor perform the worship wherewith the true divinity should
he served.

We see that these select gods have, indeed, become more

1 Mundum. * Immunduift. * Mundus. 4 Mundum.

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famous than the rest ; not, however, that their merits may be
brought to light, but that their opprobrious deeds may not
be hid. Whence it is more credible that they were men, as
not only poetic but also historical literature has handed down.
For this which Virgil says,

“Then from Olympus’ heights came down
Good Saturn, exiled from his throne
By Jove, his mightier heir j”1

and what follows with reference to this affair, is fully related
by the historian Euhemerus, and has been translated into
Latin by Ennius. And as they who have written before us
in the Greek or in the Latin tongue against such errors as
these have said much concerning this matter, I have thought
it unnecessary to dwell upon it. When I consider those physi-
cal reasons, then, by which learned and acute men attempt to
turn human things into divine things, all I see is that they
have been able to refer these things only to temporal works
and to that which has a corporeal nature, and even though
invisible still mutable ; and this is by no means the true God.
But if this worship had been performed as the symbolism of
ideas at least congruous with religion, though it would indeed
have been cause of grief that the true God was not announced
and proclaimed by its symbolism, nevertheless it could have
been in some degree borne with, when it did not occasion
and command the performance of such foul and abominable
things. But since it is impiety to worship the body or the
soul for the true God, by whose indwelling alone the soul is
happy, how much more impious is it to worship those things
through which neither soul nor body can obtain either salva-
tion or human honour ? Wherefore if with temple, priest, and
sacrifice, which are due to the true God, any element of the
world be worshipped, or any created spirit, even though not
impure and evil, that worship is still evil, not because the
things are evil by which the worship is perf ormed, but because
those things ought only to be used in the worship of Him to
whom alone such worship and service are due. But if any
one insist that he worships the one true God, — that is, the
Creator of every soul and of every body, — with stupid and

1 Yirgil, JSneid, yiii. 319-20.

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monstrous idols, with human victims, with putting a wreath
on the male organ, with the wages of unchastity, with the
cutting of limbs, with emasculation, with the consecration of
effeminates, with impure and obscene plays, such a one does
not sin because he worships One who ought not to be wor-
shipped, but because he worships Him who ought to be wor-
shipped in a way in which He ought not to be worshipped.
But he who worships with such things, — that is, foul and
obscene things, — and that not the true God, namely, the
maker of soul and body, but a creature, even though not a
wicked creature, whether it be soul or body, or soul and body
together, twice sins against God, because he both worships
for God what is not God, and also worships with such things
as neither God nor what is not God ought to be worshipped
with. It is, indeed, manifest how these pagans worship, — that
is, how shamefully and criminally they worship ; but what or
whom they worship would have been left in obscurity, had
not their history testified that those same confessedly base
and foul rites were rendered in obedience to the demands of
the gods, who exacted them with terrible severity. Wherefore
it is evident beyond doubt that this whole civil theology is
occupied in inventing means for attracting wicked and most
impure spirits, inviting them to visit senseless images, and
through these to take possession of stupid hearts.

28. That the doctrine qf Varro concerning theology is in no part consistent

with itself.

To what purpose, then, is it that this most learned and most
acute man Varro attempts, as it were, with subtle disputation,
to reduce and refer all these gods to heaven and earth ? He
cannot do it They go out of his hands like water; they
shrink back ; they slip down and fall For when about to
speak of the females, that is, the goddesses, he says, “ Since,
as I observed in the first book concerning places, heaven and
earth are the two origins of the gods, on which account they
are called celestials and terrestrials, and as I began in the former
books with heaven, speaking of Janus, whom some have said
to be heaven, and others the earth, so I now commence with
Tellus in speaking concerning the goddesses.” I can under-
stand what embarrassment so great a mind was experiencing.

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For he is influenced by the perception of a certain plausible
resemblance, when he says that the heaven is that which does,
and the earth that which suffers, and therefore attributes the
masculine principle to the one, and the feminine to the other, —
not considering that it is rather He who made both heaven
and earth who is the maker of both activity and passivity.
On this principle he interprets the celebrated mysteries of the
Samothracians, and promises, with an air of great devoutness,
that he will by writing expound these mysteries, which have
not been so much as known to his countrymen, and will send
them his exposition. Then he says that he had from many
proofs gathered that, in those mysteries, among the images
one signifies heaven, another the earth, another the patterns
of things, which Plato calls ideas. He makes Jupiter to
signify heaven, Juno the earth, Minerva the ideas. Heaven,
by which anything is made ; the earth, from which it is made;
and the pattern, according to which it is made. But, with
respect to the last, I am forgetting to say that Plato attributed
so great an importance to these ideas as to say, not that any-
thing was made by heaven according to them, but that accord-
ing to them heaven itself was made.1 To return, however, — it
is to be observed that Yarro has, in the book on' the select
gods, lost that theory of these gods, in whom he has, as it
were, embraced all thinga For he assigns the male gods to
heaven, the females to earth; among which latter he has
placed Minerva, whom he had before placed above heaven
itself Then the male god Neptune is in the sea, which
pertains rather to earth than to heaven. Last of all, father
Dis, who is called in Greek ITKovtcdv, another male god,
brother of both (Jupiter and Neptune), is also held to be
a god of the earth, holding the upper region of the earth
himself, and allotting the nether region to his wife Proserpine.
How, then, do they attempt to refer the gods to heaven, and
the goddesses to earth? What solidity, what consistency,
what sobriety has this disputation ? But that Tellus is the
origin of the goddesses, — the great mother, to wit, beside whom
there is continually the noise of the mad and abominable
revelry of effeminates and mutilated men, and men who cut
1 In the Timceua.

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themselves, and indulge in frantic gesticulations, — how is it,
then, that Janus is called the head of the gods, and Tellus the
head of the goddesses ? In the one case error does not make
one head, and in the other frenzy does not make a sane one.
Why do they vainly attempt to refer these to the world?
Even if they could do so, no pious person worships the world
for the true God. Nevertheless, plain truth makes it evident
that they are not able even to do this. Let them rather
identify them with dead men and most wicked demons, and
no further question will remain.

29. That all things which the physical theologists have referred to the world and
its parts , they ought to have referred to the one true God.

For all those things which, according to the account given
of those gods, are referred to the world by so-called physical
interpretation, may, without any religious scruple, be rather
assigned to the true God, who made heaven and earth, and
created every soul and every body ; and the following is the
manner in which we see that this may be done. We worship
God, — not heaven and earth, of which two parts this world
consists, nor the soul or souls diffused through all living
things, — but God who made heaven and earth, and all things
which are in them ; who made every soul, whatever be the
nature of its life, whether it have life without sensation and
reason, or life with sensation, or life with both sensation and
reason.

SO. How piety distinguishes the Creator from the creatures , so that, instead of
one God , there are not worshipped as many gods as there are works qf the
one author.

And now, to begin to go over those works of the one true
God, on account of which these have made to themselves
many and false gods, whilst they attempt to give an honour-
able interpretation to their many most abominable and most
infamous mysteries, — we worship that God who has appointed
to the natures created by Him both the beginnings and the
end of their existing and moving ; who holds, knows, and dis-
poses the causes of things; who hath created the virtue of
seeds ; who hath given to what creatures He would a rational
soul, which is called mind ; who hath bestowed the faculty and
use of speech ; who hath imparted the gift of foretelling future

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things to whatever spirits it seemed to Him good; who also
Himself predicts future things, through whom He pleases,
and through whom He will removes diseases ; who, when the
human race is to be corrected and chastised by wars, regu-
lates also the beginnings, progress, and ends of these wars;
who hath created and governs the most vehement and most
violent fire of this world, in due relation and proportion to
the other elements of immense nature ; who is the governor
of all the waters; who hath made the sun brightest of all
material lights, and hath given him suitable power and
motion ; who hath not withdrawn, even from the inhabitants
of the nether world. His dominion and power; who hath
appointed to mortal natures their suitable seed and nourish-
ment, dry or liquid ; who establishes and makes fruitful the
earth ; who bountifully bestows its fruits on animals and on
men ; who knows and ordains, not only principal causes, but
also subsequent causes; who hath determined for the moon
her motion; who affords ways in heaven and on earth for
passage from one place to another ; who hath granted also to
human minds, which He hath created, the knowledge of the
various arts for the help of life and nature; who hath
appointed the union of male and female for the propagation
of offspring ; who hath favoured the societies of men with the
gift of terrestrial fire for the simplest and most familiar pur-
poses, to bum on the hearth and to give light. These are,
then, the things which that most acute and most learned man
Varro has laboured to distribute among the select gods, by I
know not what physical interpretation, which he has got from
other sources, and also conjectured for himself. But these
things the one true God makes and does, but as the same God,
— that is, as He who is wholly everywhere, included in. no
space, bound by no chains, mutable in no part of His being,
filling heaven and earth with omnipresent power, not with a
needy nature. Therefore He governs all things in such a
manner as to allow them to perform and exercise their own
proper movements. For although they can be nothing without
Him, they are not what He is. He does also many things
through angels; but only from Himself does He beatify angels.
So also, though He send angels to men for certain purposes.

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He does not for all that beatify men by the good inherent in
the angels, but by Himself, as He does the angels themselves.

SI. What benefit* God gives to the followers of the truth to enjoy over and above
His general bounty

For, besides such benefits as, according to this administra-
tion of nature of which we have made some mention, He
lavishes on good and bad alike, we have from Him a great
manifestation of great love, which belongs only to the good.
For although we can never sufficiently give thanks to Him,
that we are, that we live, that we behold heaven and earth,
that we have mind and reason by which to seek after Him
who made all these things, nevertheless, what hearts, what
number of tongues, shall affirm that they are sufficient to
render thanks to Him for this, that He hath not wholly
departed from us, laden and overwhelmed with sins, averse to
the contemplation of His light, and blinded by the love of
darkness, that is, of iniquity, but hath sent to us His own
Word, who is His only Son, that by His birth and suffering
for us in the flesh, which He assumed, we might know how
much God valued man, and that by that unique sacrifice we
might be purified from all our sins, and that, love being shed
abroad in our hearts by His Spirit, we might, having sur-
mounted all difficulties, come into eternal rest, and the
ineffable sweetness of the contemplation of Himself ?

32. That at no time in the past was the mystery qf Christ's redemption awanting ,
but was at all times declared , though in various forms.

This mystery of eternal life, even from the beginning of the
human race, was, by certain signs and sacraments suitable to
the times, announced through angels to those to whom it was
meet Then the Hebrew people was congregated into one
republic, as it were, to perform this mystery ; and in that re-
public was foretold, sometimes through men who understood
what they spake, and sometimes through men who understood
not, all that had transpired since the advent of Christ until now,
and all that will transpire. This same nation, too, was after-
wards dispersed through the nations, in order to testify to the
scriptures in which eternal salvation in Christ had been declared.
For not only the prophecies which are contained in words, nor
only the precepts for the right conduct of life, which teach

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morals and piety, and are contained in the sacred writings, — not
only these, but also the rites, priesthood, tabernacle or temple,
altars, sacrifices, ceremonies, and whatever else belongs to that
service which is due to God, and which in Greek is properly
called \arpeia, — all these signified and fore-announced those
things which we who believe in Jesus Christ unto eternal life
believe to have been fulfilled, or behold in process of fulfilment,
or confidently believe shall yet be fulfilled. .

33. That only through the Christian religion could the deceit of malign spirits,
who rejoice in the errors of men, have been manifested.

This, the only true religion, has done been able to manifest
that the gods of the nations are most impure demons, who
desire to be thought gods, availing themselves of the names of
certain defunct souls, or the appearance of mundane creatures,
and with proud impurity rejoicing in things most base and
infamous, as though in divine honours, and envying human
souls their conversion to the true God. From whose most
cruel and most impious dominion a man is liberated when he
believes on Him who has afforded an example of humility,
following which men may rise as great as was that pride by
which they fell Hence are not only those gods, concerning
whom we have already spoken much, and many others belong-
ing to different nations and lands, but also those of whom we
are now treating, who have been selected as it were into the
senate of the gods, — selected, however, on account of the
notoriousness of their crimes, not on account of the dignity
of their virtues, — whose sacred things Yarro attempts to
refer to certain natural reasons, seeking to make base things
honourable, but cannot find how to square and agree with
these reasons, because these are not the causes of those rites,
which he thinks, or rather wishes to be thought to be so. For
had not only these, but also all others of this kind, been real
causes, even though they had nothing to do with the true God
and eternal life, which is to be sought in religion, they would,
by affording some sort of reason drawn from the nature of
things, have mitigated in some degree that offence which was
occasioned by some turpitude or absurdity in the sacred rites,
which was not understood. This he attempted to do in
respect to certain fables of the theatres, or mysteries of the

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shrines ; but he did not acquit the theatres of likeness to the
shrines, but rather condemned the shrines for likeness to the
theatres. However, he in some way made the attempt to
soothe the feelings shocked by horrible things, by rendering
what he would have to be natural interpretations.

34. Concerning (he books of Numa Pompilius , which the senate ordered to be
burned , in order that the causes of sacred rites therein assigned should
not become known

But, on the other hand, we find, as the same most learned
man has related, that the causes of the sacred rites which
were given from the books of Numa Pompilius could by no
means be tolerated, and were considered unworthy, not only
to become known to the religious by being read, but even to
lie written in the darkness in which they had been concealed.
For now let me say what I promised in the third book of this
work to say in its proper place. For, as we read in the same
Varro’s book on the worship of the gods, “A certain one
Terentius had a field at the Janiculum, and once, when his
ploughman was passing the plough near to the tomb of Numa
Pompilius, he turned up from the ground the books of Numa,
in which were written the causes of the sacred institutions ;
which books he carried to the praetor, who, having read the
beginnings of them, referred to the senate what seemed to be
a matter of so much importance. And when the chief senators
had read certain of the causes why this or that rite was insti-
tuted, the senate assented to the dead Numa, and the conscript
fathers, as though concerned for the interests of religion,
ordered the praetor to bum the books.”1 Let each one believe
what he thinks; nay, let every champion of such impiety
say whatever mad contention may suggest. For my part, let
it suffice to suggest that the causes of those sacred things
which were written down by' King Numa Pompilius, the
institutor of the Roman rites, ought never to have become
known to people or senate, or even to the priests themselves ;
and also that Numa himself attained to these secrets of
demons by an illicit curiosity, in order that he might write
them down, so as to be able, by reading, to be reminded of
them. However, though he was king, and had no cause to

1 Plutarch’s Numa; I ivy, xl. 29.

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be afraid of any one, he neither dared to teach them to any
one, nor to destroy them by obliteration, or any other form of
destruction. Therefore, because he was unwilling that any
one should know them, lest men should be taught infamous
things, and because he was afraid to violate them, lest he
should enrage the demons against himself, he buried them in
what he thought a safe place, believing that a plough could
not approach his sepulchre. But the senate, fearing to con-
demn the religious solemnities of their ancestors, and therefore
compelled to assent to Numa, were nevertheless so convinced
that those books were pernicious, that they did not order
them to be buried again, knowing that human curiosity would
thereby be excited to seek with far greater eagerness after
the matter already divulged, but ordered the scandalous relics
to be destroyed with fire ; because, as they thought it was now
a necessity to perform those sacred rites, they judged that the
error arising from ignorance of their causes was more tolerable
than the disturbance which the knowledge of them would
occasion the state.

85. Concerning the hydromancy through which Numa was befooled by certain
images qf demons seen in the water .

For Numa himself also, to whom no prophet of God, no
holy angel was sent, was driven to have recourse to hydro-
mancy, that he might see the images of the gods in the water
(or, rather, appearances whereby the demons made sport of
him), and might learn from them what he ought to ordain and
observe in the sacred rites. This kind of divination, says
Varro, was introduced from the Persians, and was used by
Numa himself, and at an after time by the philosopher
Pythagoras. In this divination, he says, they also inquire at
the inhabitants of the nether world, and make use of blood;
and this the Greeks call vetcpo/Mavreiav. But whether it be
called necromancy or hydromancy it is the same thing, for in
either case the dead are supposed to foretell future things.
But by what artifices these things are done, let themselves
consider ; for I am unwilling to say that these artifices were
wont to be prohibited by the laws, and to be very severely
punished even in the Gentile states, before the advent of our
Saviour. I am unwilling, I say, to affirm this, for perhaps

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even such things were then allowed. However, it was by
these arts that Pompilius learned those sacred rites which he
gave forth as facts, whilst he concealed their causes; for
even he himself was afraid of that which he had learned.
The senate also caused the books in which those causes were ,
recorded to be burned. What is it, then, to me, that Varro
attempts to adduce all sorts of fanciful physical interpreta-
tions, which if these books had contained, they would certainly
not have been burned ? For otherwise the conscript fathers
would also have burned those books which Varro published
and dedicated to the high priest Caesar.1 Now Numa is said
to have married the nymph Egeria, because (as Varro ex-
plains it in the forementioned book) he carried forth2 water
wherewith to perform his hydromancy. Thus facts are wont
to be converted into fables through false colourings. It was
by that hydromancy, then, that that over-curious Eoman king
learned both the sacred rites which were to be written in the
books of the priests, and also the causes of those rites, — which
latter, however, he was unwilling that any one besides himself
should know. Wherefore he made these causes, as it were,
to die along with himself, taking care to have them written
by themselves, and removed from the knowledge of men by
being buried in the earth. Wherefore the things which are
written in those books were either abominations of demons,
so foul and noxious as to render that whole civil theology
execrable even in the eyes of such men as those senators, who
had accepted so many shameful things in the sacred rites
themselves, or they were nothing else than the accounts of
dead men, whom, through the lapse of ages, almost all the
Gentile nations had come to believe to be immortal gods;
whilst those same demons were delighted even with such rites,
having presented themselves to receive worship under pretence
of being those very dead men whom they had caused to be
thought immortal gods by certain fallacious miracles, performed
in order to establish that belief. But, by the hidden provi-
dence of the true God, these demons were permitted to confess
these things to their friend Numa, having been gained by those
arts through which necromancy could be performed, and yet

1 Comp. Lac tan tills, Jnstit. L 6. 1 Egesserit.

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were not constrained to admonish him rather at his death to
bum than to bury the books in which they were written-
But, in order that these books might be unknown, the demons
could not resist the plough by which they were thrown up, or
the pen of Varro, through which the things which were done
in reference to this matter have come down even to our know-
ledge. For they are not able to effect anything which they
are not allowed ; but they are permitted to influence those
whom God, in His deep and just judgment, according to their
deserts, gives over either to be simply afflicted by them, or to
be also subdued and deceived. But how pernicious these
writings were judged to be, or how alien from the worship of
the true Divinity, may be understood from the fact that the
senate preferred to bum what Pompilius had hid, rather than
to fear what he feared, so that he could not dare to do that.
Wherefore let him who does not desire to live a pious life
even now, seek eternal life by means of such rites. But let
him who does not wish to have fellowship with malign demons
have no fear for the noxious superstition wherewith they are
worshipped, but let him recognise the true religion by which
they are unmasked and vanquished.

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BOOK EIGHTH.

ARGUMENT.

AUGUSTINE COMES NOW TO THE THIRD KIND OF THEOLOGY, THAT IS, THE
NATURAL, AND TAKES UP THE QUESTION, WHETHER THE WORSHIP OF
THE GOD8 OF THE NATURAL THEOLOGY IS OF ANY AVAIL TOWARDS
SECURING BLESSEDNESS IN THE LIFE TO COME. THIS QUESTION HE
PREFERS TO DI8CU88 WITH THE PLATON 1 8T8, BECAUSE THE PLATONIC
SYSTEM IS ** FACILE PRINCEP8 ” AMONG PHILOSOPHIES, AND MAKES THE
NEAREST APPROXIMATION TO CHRISTIAN TRUTH. IN PURSUING THIS
ARGUMENT, HE FIRST REFUTES APULEIU8, AND ALL WHO MAINTAIN THAT
THE DEMONS SHOULD BE WORSHIPPED AS MESSENGERS AND MEDIATORS
BETWEEN GODS AND MEN ; DEMONSTRATING THAT BY NO POSSIBILITY CAN
MEN BE RECONCILED TO GOOD GODS BY DEMONS, WHO ARE THE SLAVES OF
VICE, AND WHO DELIGHT IN AND PATRONIZE WHAT GOOD AND WISE
MEN ABHOR AND CONDEMN,— THE BLASPHEMOUS FICTIONS OF POET8,
THEATRICAL EXHIBITIONS, AND MAGICAL ARTS.

1. That the question of natural theology is to he discussed with those philosophers
who sought a more excellent wisdom.

WE shall require to apply our mind with far greater
intensity to the present question than was requisite
in the solution and unfolding of the questions handled in the
preceding books ; for it is not with ordinary men, but with
philosophers that we must confer concerning the theology
which they call natural For it is not like the fabulous, that
is, the theatrical ; nor the civil, that is, the urban theology :
the one of which displays the crimes of the gods, whilst the
other manifests their criminal desires, which demonstrate them
to be rather malign demons than gods. It is, we say, with
philosophers we have to confer with respect to this theology, —
men whose very name, if rendered into Latin, signifies those
who profess the love of wisdom. Now, if wisdom is God,
who made all things, as is attested by the divine authority
and truth,1 then the philosopher is a lover of God. But since
the thing itself, which is called by this name, exists not in all
who glory in the name, — for it does not follow, of course, that
1 Wisdom vii 24-27.

VOL. L V

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all who axe called philosophers are lovers of true wisdom, —
we must needs select from the number of those with whose
opinions we have been able to acquaint ourselves by reading,
some with whom we may not unworthily engage in the treat-
ment of this question. For I have not in this work under-
taken to refute all the vain opinions of the philosophers,
but only such as pertain to theology, which Greek word we
understand to mean an account or explanation of the divine
nature. Nor, again, have I undertaken to refute all the vain
theological opinions of all the philosophers, but only of such
of them as, agreeing in the belief that there is a divine nature,
and that this divine nature is concerned about human affairs,
do nevertheless deny that the worship of the one unchangeable
God is sufficient for the obtaining of a blessed life after death,
as well as at the present time ; and hold that, in order to
obtain that life, many gods, created, indeed, and appointed to
their several spheres by that one God, are to be worshipped.
These approach nearer to the truth than even Yarro; for,
whilst he saw no difficulty in extending natural theology in
its entirety even to the world and the soul of the world, these
acknowledge God as existing stbove all that is of the nature of
soul, and as the Creator not only of this visible world, which
is often called heaven and earth, but also of every soul what-
soever, and as Him who gives blessedness to the rational soul,
— of which kind is the human soul, — by participation in His
own unchangeable and incorporeal light There is no one,
who has even a slender knowledge of these things, who does
not know of the Platonic philosophers, who derive their name
from their master Plato. Concerning this Plato, then, I will
briefly state puch things as I deem necessary to the present
question, mentioning beforehand those who preceded him in
time in the same department of literature.

2. Concerning the two schools of philosophers, that is, the Italic and Ionic, and

their founders .

As far as concerns the literature of the Greeks, whose
language holds a more illustrious place than any of the lan-
guages of the other nations, history mentions two schools of
philosophers, the one called the Italic school, originating in
that part of Italy which was formerly called Magna Grsecia ;

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the other called the Ionic school, having its origin in those
regions which are still called by the name of Greece. The
Italic school had for its founder Pythagoras of Samos, to whom
also the term "philosophy” is said to owe its origin. For
whereas formerly those who seemed to excel others by the
laudable manner in which they regulated their lives were
called sages, Pythagoras, on being asked what he professed,
replied that he was a philosopher, that is, a student or lover
of wisdom ; for it seemed to him to be the height of arrogance
to profess oneself a sage.1 The founder of the Ionic school,
again, was Thales of Miletus, one of those seven who were
styled the “ seven sages,” of whom six were distinguished by
the kind of life they lived, and by certain maxims which they
gave forth for the proper conduct of life. Thales was distin-
guished as an investigator into the nature of things ; and, in
order that he might have successors in his school, he com-
mitted his dissertations to writing. That, however, which
especially rendered him eminent was his ability, by means of
astronomical calculations, even to predict eclipses of the sun
and moon. He thought, however, that water was the first
principle of things, and that of it all the elements of the
world, the world itself, and all things which are generated in
it, ultimately consist Over all this work, however, which,
when we consider the world, appears so admirable, he set
nothing of the nature of divine mind. To him succeeded
Anaximander, his pupil, who held a different opinion concern-
ing the nature of things ; for he did not hold that all things
spring from one principle, as Thales did, who held that prin-
ciple to be water, but thought that each thing springs from its
own proper principle. These principles of things he believed
to be infinite in number, and thought that they generated
innumerable worlds, and all the things which arise in them.
He thought, also, that these worlds are subject to a perpetual
process of alternate dissolution and regeneration, each one
continuing for a longer or shorter period of time, according
to the nature of the case ; nor did he, any more than Thales,
attribute anything to a divine mind in the production of all
this activity of things. Anaximander left as his successor his

1 “Sapiens,” that is, a wise man, one who had attained to wisdom.

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disciple Anaximenes, who attributed all the causes of things
to an infinite air. He neither denied nor ignored the existence
of gods, but, so far from believing that the air was made by
them, he held, on the contrary, that they sprang from the air.
Anaxagoras, however, who was his pupil, perceived that a
divine mind was the productive cause of all things which we
see, and said that all the various kinds of things, according
to their several modes and species, were produced out of an
infinite matter consisting of homogeneous particles, but by the
efficiency of a divine mind. Diogenes, also, another pupil of
Anaximenes, said that a certain air was the original substance
of things out of which all things were produced, but that it
was possessed of a divine reason, without which nothing could
be produced from it Anaxagoras was succeeded by his dis-
ciple Archelaus, who also thought that all things consisted of
homogeneous particles, of which each particular thing was
made, but that those particles were pervaded by a divine
mind, which perpetually energized all the eternal bodies,
namely, those particles, so that they are alternately united
and separated. Socrates, the master of Plato, is said to have
been the disciple of Archelaus ; and on Plato’s account it is
that I have given this brief historical sketch of the whole
history of these schools.

3. Of the Socratic philosophy.

Socrates is said to have been the first who directed the
entire effort of philosophy to the correction and regulation of
manners, all who went before him having expended their
greatest efforts in the investigation of physical, that is, natural
phenomena. However, it seems to me that it cannot be
certainly discovered whether Socrates did this because he was
wearied of obscure and uncertain things, and so wished to
direct his mind to the discovery of something manifest and
certain, which was necessary in order to the obtaining of a
blessed life, — that one great object toward which the labour,
vigilance, and industry of all philosophers seem to have been
directed, — or whether (as some yet more favourable to him
suppose) he did it because he was unwilling that minds
defiled with earthly desires should essay to raise themselves
upward to divine things. For he saw that the causes of

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things were sought for by them, — which causes he believed to
be ultimately reducible to nothing else than the will of the
one true and supreme God, — and on this account he thought
they could only be comprehended by a purified mind; and
therefore that all diligence ought to be given to the purifi-
cation of the life by good morals, in order that the mind,
delivered from the depressing weight of lusts, might raise
itself upward by its native vigour to eternal things, and
might, with purified understanding, contemplate that nature
which is incorporeal and unchangeable light, where live the
causes of all created natures. It is evident, however, that
he hunted out and pursued, with a wonderful pleasantness
of style and argument, and with a most pointed and insinu-
ating urbanity, the foolishness of ignorant men, who thought
that they knew this or that, — sometimes confessing his own
ignorance, and sometimes dissimulating his knowledge, even
in those very moral questions to which he seems to have
directed the whole force of his mind. And hence there arose
hostility against him, which ended in his being calumniously
impeached, and condemned to death. Afterwards, however,
that very city of the Athenians, which had publicly con-
demned him, did publicly bewail him, — the popular indigna-
tion having turned with such vehemence on his accusers, that
one of them perished by the violence of the multitude,, whilst
the other only escaped a like punishment by voluntary and
perpetual exile.

Illustrious, therefore, both in his life and in his death,
Socrates left very many disciples of his philosophy, who
vied with one another in desire for proficiency in hand-
ling those moral questions which concern the chief good
(summv/m bonum), the possession of which can make a man
blessed ; and because, in the disputations of Socrates, where
he raises all manner of questions, makes assertions, and
then demolishes them, it did not evidently appear what he
held to be the chief good, every one took from these dis-
putations what pleased him best, and every one placed the
final good1 in whatever it appeared to himself to consist
Now, that which is called the final good is that at which,

1 Finem born.

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when one has arrived, he is blessed. But so diverse were
the opinions held by those followers of Socrates concerning
this final good, that (a thing scarcely to be credited with
respect to the followers of one master) some placed the chief
good in pleasure, as Aristippus/ others in virtue, as Antis-
thenes. Indeed, it were tedious to recount the various
opinions of various disciples.

4. Concerning Plato , the chiqf among the disciples qf Socrates , and his
threefold division of philosophy.

But, among the disciples of Socrates, Plato was the one who
shone with a glory which far excelled that of the others, and
who not unjustly eclipsed them all. By birth an Athenian
of honourable parentage, he far surpassed his fellow-disciples
in natural endowments, of which he was possessed in a won-
derful degree. Yet, deemirig himself and the Socratic discipline
far from sufficient for bringing philosophy to perfection, he
travelled as extensively as he was fible, going to every place
famed for the cultivation of any science of which he could
make himself master. Thus he learned from the Egyptians
whatever they held and taught as important; and from Egypt,
passing into those parts of Italy which were filled with the
fame of the Pythagoreans, he mastered, with the greatest
facility, and under the most eminent teachers, all the Italic
philosophy which was then in vogue. And, as he had a
peculiar love for his master Socrates, he made him the speaker
in all his dialogues, putting into his mouth whatever he had
learned, either from others, or from the efforts of his own
powerful intellect, tempering even his moral disputations with
the grace and politeness of the Socratic style. And, as the
study of wisdom consists in action and contemplation, so that
one part of it may be called active, and the other contem-
plative,— the active part having reference to the conduct of life,
that is, to the regulation of morals, and the contemplative part
to the investigation into the causes of nature and into pure
truth, — Socrates is said to have excelled in the active part of
that study, while Pythagoras gave more attention to its con-
templative part, on which he brought to bear all the force of
his great intellect. To Plato is given the praise of having
perfected philosophy by combining both parts into one. He

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then divides it into three parts, — the first moral, which is
chiefly occupied with action; the second natural, of which the
object is contemplation; and the third rational, which dis-
criminates between the true and the falsa And though this
last is necessary both to action and contemplation, it is
contemplation, nevertheless, which lays peculiar claim to the
office of investigating the nature of truth. Thus this tripar-
tite division is not contrary to that which made the study of
wisdom to consist in action and contemplation. Now, as to
what Plato thought with respect to each of these parts, — that
is, what he believed to be the end of all actions, the cause of
all natures, and the light of all intelligences, — it would be a
question too long to discuss, and about which we ought not
to make any rash affirmation. For, as Plato liked and con-
stantly affected the well-known method of his master Socrates,
namely, that of dissimulating his knowledge or his opinions,
it is not easy to discover clearly what he himself thought on
various matters, any more than it is to discover what were
the real opinions of Socrates. We must, nevertheless, insert
into our work certain of those opinions which he expresses in
his writings, whether he himself uttered them, or narrates
them as expressed by others, and seems himself to approve
of, — opinions sometimes favourable to the true religion, which
our faith takes up and defends, and sometimes contrary to it,
as, for example, in the questions concerning the existence of
one God or of many, as it relates to the truly blessed life
which is to be after death. For those who are praised as
having most closely followed Plato, who is justly preferred to
all the other philosophers of the Gentiles, and who are said
to have manifested the greatest acuteness in understanding
him, do perhaps entertain such an idea of God as to admit
that in Him are to be found the cause of existence, the ulti-
mate reason for the understanding, and the end in reference
to which the whole life is to be regulated. Of which three
things, the first is understood to pertain to the natural, the
second to the rational, and the third to the moral part of
philosophy. For if man has been so created as to attain,
through that which is most excellent in him, to that which
excels all things, — that is, to the one true and absolutely good

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God, without whom no nature exists, no doctrine instructs, no
exercise profits, — let Him be sought in whom all things are
secure to us, let Him be discovered in whom all truth becomes
certain to us, let Him be loved in whom all becomes right
to us.

S. That it is especially with the Platonists that we must carry on our disputa*
Hons on matters of theology, their opinions being preferable to those qf all
other philosophers

If, then, Plato defined the wise man as one who imitates,
knows, loves this God, and who is rendered blessed through
fellowship with Him in His own blessedness, why discuss
with the other philosophers ? It is evident that none come
nearer to us than the Platonists. To them, therefore, let that
fabulous theology give place which delights the minds of men
with the crimes of the gods ; and that civil theology also, in
which impure demons, under the name of gods, have seduced
the peoples of the earth given up to earthly pleasures, desiring
to be honoured by the errors of men, and, by filling the minds
of their worshippers with impure desires, exciting them to
make the representation of their crimes one of the rites of
their worship, whilst they themselves found in the spectators
of these exhibitions a most pleasing spectacle, — a theology in
which, whatever was honourable in the temple, was defiled by
its mixture with the obscenity of the theatre, and whatever
was base in the theatre was vindicated by the abominations
of the temples. To these philosophers also the interpretations
of Varro must give place, in which he explains the sacred rites
as having reference to heaven and earth, and to the seeds and
operations of perishable things ; for, in the first place, those
rites have not the signification which he would have men be-
lieve is attached to them, and therefore truth does not follow
him in his attempt so to interpret them ; and even if they
had this signification, still those things ought not to be wor-
shipped by the rational soul as its god which are placed below
it in the scale of nature, nor ought the soul to prefer to itself
as gods things to which the true God has given it the prefer-
ence. The same must be said of those writings pertaining to
the sacred rites, which Numa Pompilius took care to conceal
by causing them to be buried along with himself, and which.

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when they were afterwards turned up by the plough, were
burned by order of the senate. And, to treat Numa with
all honour, let us mention as belonging to the same rank as
these writings that which Alexander of Macedon wrote to his
mother as communicated to him by Leo, an Egyptian high
priest In this letter not only Picus and Faunus, and iEneas
and Romulus, or even Hercules and iEsculapius and Liber,
bom of Semele, and the twin sons of Tyndareus, or any
other mortals who have been deified, but even the principal
gods themselves,1 to whom Cicero, in his Tusculan questions,*
alludes without mentioning their names, Jupiter, Juno,
Saturn, Vulcan, Vesta, and many others whom Varro attempts
to identify with the parts or the elements of the world, are
shown to have been men. There is, as we have said, a simi-
larity between this case and that of Numa; for, the priest
being afraid because he had revealed a mystery, earnestly
begged of Alexander to command his mother to bum the letter
which conveyed these communications to her. Let these two
theologies, then, the fabulous and the civil, give place to the
Platonic philosophers, who have recognised the true God as
the author of all things, the source of the light of truth, and
the bountiful bestower of all blessedness. And not these only,
but to these great acknowledgers of so great a God, those
philosophers must yield who, having their mind enslaved to
their body, supposed the principles of all things to be material ;
as Thales, who held that the first principle of all things was
water; Anaximenes, that it was air; the Stoics, that it was
fire ; Epicurus, who affirmed that it consisted of atoms, that
is to say, of minute corpuscules ; and many others whom it is
needless to enumerate, but who believed that bodies, simple
or compound, animate or inanimate, but nevertheless bodies,
were the cause and principle of all things. For some of them
— as, for instance, the Epicureans — believed that living things
could originate from things without life ; others held that all
things living or without life spring from a living principle,
but that, nevertheless, all things, being material, spring from
a material principle. For the Stoics thought that fire, that
is, one of the four material elements of which this visible
1 Dii majorum gentium. * Book i. 18.

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world is composed, was both living and intelligent, the maker
of the world and of all things contained in it, — that it was
in fact God. These and others like them have only been able
to suppose that which their hearts enslaved to sense have
vainly suggested to them. And yet they have within them-
selves something which they could not see : they represented
to themselves inwardly things which they had seen without,
even when they were not seeing them, but only thinking of
them. But this representation in thought is no longer a
body, but only the similitude of a body ; and that faculty of
the mind by which this similitude of a body is seen is neither
a body nor the similitude of a body ; and the faculty which
judges whether the representation is beautiful or ugly is
without doubt superior to the object judged of. This prin-
ciple is the understanding of man, the rational soul ; and it is
certainly not a body, since that similitude of a body which it
beholds and judges of is itself not a body. The soul is neither
earth, nor water, nor air, nor fire, of which four bodies, called
the four elements, we see that this world is composed. And
if the soul is not a body, how should God, its Creator, be a
body? Let all those philosophers, then, give place, as we
have said, to the Platonists, and those also who have been
ashamed to say that God is a body, but yet have thought that
our souls are of the same nature as God. They have not been
staggered by the great changeableness of the soul, — an attri-
bute which it would be impious to ascribe to the divine nature,
— but they say it is the body which changes the soul, for in
itself it is unchangeable. As well might they say, “ Flesh is
wounded by some body, for in itself it is invulnerable.” In a
word, that which is unchangeable can be changed by nothing,
so that that which can be changed by the body cannot pro-
perly be said to be immutable.

6. Concerning the meaning of the Platonists in that part of philosophy called

physical.

These philosophers, then, whom we see not undeservedly
exalted above the rest in fame and glory, have seen that no
material body is God, and therefore they have transcended
all bodies in seeking for God. They have seen that whatever
is changeable is not the most high God, and therefore they

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have transcended every soul and all changeable spirits in
seeking the supreme. They have seen also that, in every
changeable thing, the form which makes it that which it is,
whatever be its mode or nature, can only be through Him
who truly is, because He is unchangeable. And therefore,
whether we consider the whole body of the world, its figure,
qualities, and orderly movement, and also all the bodies
which are in it ; or whether we consider all life, either that
which nourishes and maintains, as the life of trees, or that
which, besides this, has also sensation, as the life of beasts ;
or that which adds to all these intelligence, as the life of
man ; or that which does not need the support of nutriment,
but only maintains, feels, understands, as the life of angels, —
all can only be through Him who absolutely is. For to Him
it is not one thing to be, and another to live, as though He
could be, not living ; nor is it to Him one thing to live, and
another thing to understand, as though He could live, not
understanding; nor is it to Him one thing to understand,
another thing to be blessed, as though He could understand
and not be blessed But to Him to live, to understand, to
be blessed, are to be. They have understood, from this un-
changeableness and this simplicity, that all things must have
been made by Him, and that He could Himself have been
made by none. For they have considered that whatever is
is either body or life, and that life is something better than
body, and that the nature of body is sensible, and that of
life intelligible. Therefore they have preferred the intelligible
nature to the sensible. We mean by sensible things such
things as can be perceived by the sight and touch of the body ;
by intelligible things, such as can be understood by the sight
of the mind For there is no corporeal beauty, whether in
the condition of a body, as figure, or in its movement, as in
music, of which it is not the mind that judges. But this
could never have been, had there not existed in the mind
itself a superior form of these things, without bulk, without
noise of voice, without space and time. But even in respect
of these things, had the mind not been mutable, it would not
have been possible for one to judge better than another with
regard to sensible forms. He who is clever judges better

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than he who is alow, he who is skilled than he who is un-
skilful, he who is practised than he who is unpractised ; and
the same person judges better after he has gained experience
than he did before. But that which is capable of more and
less is mutable ; whence able men, who have thought deeply
on these things, have gathered that the first form is not to
be found in those things whose form is changeable. Since,
therefore, they saw that body and mind might be more or
less beautiful in form, and that, if they wanted form, they
could have no existence, they saw that there is some exist-
ence in which is the first form, unchangeable, and therefore
not admitting of degrees of comparison, and in that they most
rightly believed was the first principle of things, which was
not made, and by which all things were made. Therefore
that which is known of God He manifested to them when
BQs invisible things were seen by them, being understood
by those things which have been made; also His eternal
power and Godhead by whom all visible and temporal things
have been created.1 We have said enough upon that part of
theology which they call physical, that is, natural.

7. How much the Platonists are to be held as excelling other philosophers in
logic , Le. rational philosophy.

Then, again, as far as regards the doctrine which treats of
that which they call logic, that is, rational philosophy, far be
it from us to compare them with those who attributed to
the bodily senses the faculty of discriminating truth, and
thought that all we learn is to be measured by their un-
trustworthy and fallacious rules. Such were the Epicureans,
and all of the same school. Such also were the Stoics, who
ascribed to the bodily senses that expertness in disputation
which they so ardently love, palled by them dialectic, assert-
ing that from the senses the mind conceives the notions
(ewouu) of those things which they explicate by definition.
And hence is developed the whole plan and connection of
their learning and teaching. I often wonder, with respect to
this, how they can say that none are beautiful but the wise ;
for by what bodily sense have they perceived that beauty,
by what eyes of the flesh have they seen wisdom’s comeli-
1 Bom. i. 19, 20.

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ness of form ? Those, however, whom we justly rank before
all others, have distinguished those things which are con-
ceived by the mind from those which are perceived by the
senses, neither taking away from the senses anything to
which they axe competent, nor attributing to them anything
beyond their competency. And the light of our understand-
ings, by which all things are learned by us, they have affirmed
to be that selfsame God by whom all things were made.

8. That the Platonists hold (he first rank in moral philosophy also.

The remaining part of philosophy is morals, or what is
called by the Greeks rjBucrj, in which is discussed the question
concerning the chief good, — that which will leave us nothing
further to seek in order to be blessed, if only we make all
our actions refer to it, and seek it not for the sake of some-
thing else, but for its own sake. Therefore it is called the
end, because we wish other things on account of it, but itself
only for its own sake. This beatific good, therefore, according
to some, comes to a man from the body, according to others,
from the mind, and, according to others, from both together.
For they saw that man himself consists of soul and body;
and therefore they believed that from either of these two,
or from both together, their well-being must proceed, consist-
ing in a certain final good, which could render them blessed,
and to which they might refer all their actions, not requiring
anything ulterior to which to refer that good itself. This is
why those who have added a third kind of good things, which
they call extrinsic, — as honour, glory, wealth, and the like, —
have not regarded them as part of the final good, that is, to be
sought after for their own sake, but as things which are to be
sought for the sake of something else, affirming that this kind
of good is good to the good, and evil to the evil Where-
fore, whether they have sought the good of man from the
mind or from the body, or from both together, it is still only
from man they have supposed that it must be sought. But
they who have sought it from the body have sought it from
the inferior part of man ; they who have sought it from the
mind, from the superior part ; and they who have sought it
from both, from the whole man. Whether, therefore, they

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have sought it from any part, or from the whole man, still
they have only sought it from man ; nor have these differ-
ences, being three, given rise only to three dissentient sects
of philosophers, but to many. For diverse philosophers have
held diverse opinions, both concerning the good of the body,
and the good of the mind, and the good of both together.
Let, therefore, all these give place to those philosophers who
have not affirmed that a man is blessed by the enjoyment of
the body, or by the enjoyment of the mind, but by the enjoy-
ment of God, — enjoying Him, however, not as the mind does
the body or itself, or as one friend enjoys another, but as the
eye enjoys light, if, indeed, we may draw any comparison
between these things. But what the nature of this compari-
son is, will, if God help me, be shown in another place, to the
best of my ability. At present, it is sufficient to mention
that Plato determined the final good to be to live according
to virtue, and affirmed that he only can attain to virtue who
knows and imitates God, — which knowledge and imitation are
the only cause of blessedness. Therefore he did not doubt
that to philosophize is to love God, whose nature is incor-
poreal Whence it certainly follows that the student of
wisdom, that is, the philosopher, will then become blessed
when he shall have begun to enjoy God. For though he is
not necessarily blessed who enjoys that which he loves (for
many are miserable by loving that which ought not to be
loved, and still more miserable when they enjoy it), neverthe-
less no one is blessed who does not enjoy that which he loves.
For even they who love things which ought not to be loved
do not count themselves blessed by loving merely, but by
enjoying them. Who, then, but the most miserable will deny
that he is blessed, who enjoys that which he loves, and loves
the true and highest good ? But the true and highest good,
according to Plato, is God, and therefore he would call him
a philosopher who loves God; for philosophy is directed to the
obtaining of the blessed life, and he who loves God is blessed
in the enjoyment of God.

9. Concerning that philosophy which has come nearest to the Christian faith.
Whatever philosophers, therefore, thought concerning the
supreme God, that He is both the maker of all created things,

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the light by which things are known, and the good in reference
to which things are to be done ; that we have in Him the
first principle of nature, the truth of doctrine, and the happi-
ness of life, — whether these philosophers may be more suitably
called Platonists, or whether they may give some other name
to their sect ; whether, we say, that only the chief men of the
Ionic school, such as Plato himself, and they who have well
understood him, have thought thus ; or whether we also in-
clude the Italic school, on account of Pythagoras and the
Pythagoreans, and all who may have held like opinions ; and,
lastly, whether also we include all who have been held wise
men and philosophers among all nations who are discovered to
have seen and taught this, be they Atlantics, Libyans, Egyptians,
Indians, Persians, Chaldeans, Scythians, Gauls, Spaniards, or
of other nations, — we prefer these to all other philosophers,
and confess that they approach nearest to us.

10. That the excellency of the Christian religion is above all the science of
philosophers .

For although a Christian man instructed only in ecclesias-
tical literature may perhaps be ignorant of the very name of
Platonists, and may not even know that there have existed
two schools of philosophers speaking the Greek tongue, to
wit, the Ionic and Italic, he is nevertheless not so deaf with
respect to human affairs, as not to know that philosophers
profess the study, and even the possession, of wisdom. He
is on his guard, however, with respect to those who philo-
sophize according to the elements of this world, not according
to God, by whom the world itself was made ; for he is warned
by the precept of the apostle, and faithfully hears what has
been said, “ Beware that no one deceive you through philo-
sophy and vain deceit, according to the elements of the world.”1
Then, that he may not suppose that all philosophers are such
as do this, he hears the same apostle say concerning certain
of them, “ Because that which is known of God is manifest
among them, for God has manifested it to them. For His
invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being understood by the things which are made, also

1 CoL ii. 8.

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His eternal power and Godhead.”1 And, when speaking to
the Athenians, after haring spoken a mighty thing concerning
God, which few are able to understand, “ In Him we live, and
move, and have our being,”* he goes on to say, "As certain
also of your own have said.” He knows well, too, to be on
his guard against even these philosophers in their errors. For
where it has been said by him, " that God has manifested to
them by those things which are made His invisible things, that
they might be seen by the understanding,” there it has also
been said that they did not rightly worship God Himself,
because they paid divine honours, which are due to Him
alone, to other things also to which they ought not to have
paid them, — “ because, knowing God, they glorified Him not as
God ; neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagi-
nations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing
themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the
glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image
of corruptible man, and ot birds, and fourfooted beasts, and
creeping things;”8 — where the apostle would have us
understand him as meaning the Homans, and Greeks, and
Egyptians, who gloried in the name of wisdom; but con-
cerning this we will dispute with them afterwards. With
respect, however, to that wherein they agree with us we
prefer them to all others, namely, concerning the one God,
the author of this universe, who is not only above every body,
being incorporeal, but also above all souls, being incorruptible
— our principle, our light, our good. And though the
Christian man, being ignorant of their writings, does not use
in disputation words which he has not learned, — not calling
that part of philosophy natural (which is the Latin term), or
physical (which is the Greek one), which treats of the investi-
gation of nature ; or that part rational, or logical, which deals
with the question how truth may be discovered ; or that part
moral, or ethical, which concerns morals, and shows how good
is to be sought, and evil to be shunned, — he is not, therefore,
ignorant that it is from the one true and supremely good God
that we have that nature in which we are made in the image
of God, and that doctrine by which we know Him and our*
1 Rom. i. 19, 20. * Acts xvii 28. 8 Rom. L 21-28.

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selves, and that grace through which, by cleaving to Him, we
are blessed This, therefore, is the cause why we prefer these
to all the others, because, whilst other philosophers have worn
out their minds and powers in seeking the causes of things,
and endeavouring to discover the right mode of learning and
of living, these, by knowing God, have found where resides the
cause by which the universe has been constituted, and the
light by which truth is to be discovered, and the fountain at
which felicity is to be drunk. All philosophers, then, who
have had these thoughts concerning God, whether Platonists
or others, agree with us. But we have thought it better to
plead our cause with the Platonists, because their writings are
better known. For the Greeks, whose tongue holds the highest
place among the languages of the Gentiles, are loud in their
praises of these writings; and the Latins, taken with their
excellence, or their renown, have studied them more heartily
than other writings, and, by translating them into our tongue,
have given them greater celebrity and notoriety.

11. How Plato has been able to approach so nearly to Christian knowledge .

Certain partakers with us in the grace of Christ, wonder
when they hear and read that Plato had conceptions concern-
ing God, in which they recognise considerable agreement with
the truth of our religion. Some have concluded from this,
that when he went to Egypt he had heard the prophet Jere-
miah, or, whilst travelling in the same country, had read the
prophetic scriptures, which opinion I myself have expressed
in certain of my writings.1 But a careful calculation of dates,
contained in chronological history, shows that Plato was bom
about a hundred years after the time in which Jeremiah pro-
phesied, and, as he lived eighty-one years, there are found to
have been about seventy years from his death to that time
when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, requested the prophetic scrip-
tures of the Hebrew people to be sent to him from Judea,
and committed them to seventy Hebrews, who also knew the
Greek tongue, to be translated and kept. Therefore, on that
voyage of his, Plato could neither have seen Jeremiah, who
was dead so long before, nor have read those same scriptures
1 De Doctrina Christiana, ii. 43. Comp. Retrod, ii. 4, 2.

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which had not yet been translated into the Greek language, of
which he was a master, unless, indeed, we say that, as he
was most earnest in the pursuit of knowledge, he also studied
those writings through an interpreter, as he did those of the
Egyptians, — not, indeed, writing a translation of them (the
facilities for doing which were only gained even by Ptolemy
in return for munificent acts of kindness,1 though fear of his
kingly authority might have seemed a sufficient motive), but
learning as much as he possibly could concerning their contents
by means of conversation. What warrants this supposition is
the opening verses of Genesis : “ In the beginning God made
the heaven and earth. And the earth was invisible, and
without order; and darkness was over the abyss: and the
Spirit of God moved over the waters.”* For in the Timceus,
when writing on the formation of the world, he says that God
first united earth and fire ; from which it is evident that he
assigns to fire a place in heaven. This opinion bears a certain
resemblance to the statement, “ In the beginning God made
heaven and earth.” Plato next speaks of those two inter-
mediary elements, water and air, by which the other two
extremes, namely, earth and fire, were mutually united;
from which circumstance he is thought to have so understood
the words, “ The Spirit of God moved over the waters.” For,
not paying sufficient attention to the designations given by
those scriptures to the Spirit of God, he may have thought
that the four elements are spoken of in that place, because
the air also is called spirit* Then, as to Plato’s saying that
the philosopher is a lover of God, nothing shines forth more
conspicuously in those sacred writings. But the most striking
thing in this connection, and that which most of all inclines
me almost to assent to the opinion that Plato was not ignorant
of those writings, is the answer which was given to the ques-
tion elicited from the holy Moses wKen the words of God
were conveyed to him by the angel ; for, when he asked what
was the name of that God who was commanding him to go
and deliver the Hebrew people out of Egypt, this answer was

1 Liberating Jewish slaves, and sending gifts to the temple. See Josephus,
Ant. xii. 2.

2 Gen. 11,2. * Spiritus.

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given : wIam who am ; and thou shalt say to the children of
Israel, He who is sent me unto you as though compared
with Him that truly is, because He is unchangeable, those
things which have been created mutable are not, — a truth
which Plato vehemently held, and most diligently commended
And I know not whether this sentiment is anywhere to be
found in the books of those who were before Plato, unless in
that book where it is said, “I am who am ; and thou shalt
say to the children of Israel, Who is sent me unto you.”

12. That even the Platonists , though they say these things concerning the one
true Ood , nevertheless thought that sacred rites were to he performed in
honour of many gods .

But we need not determine from what source he learned
these things, — whether it was from the books of the ancients
who preceded him, or, as is more likely, from the words of
the apostle : “ Because that which is known of God has been
manifested among them, for God hath manifested it to them.
For His invisible things from the creation of the world are
clearly seen, being understood by those things which have
been made, also His eternal power and Godhead”2 From
whatever source he may have derived this knowledge, then, I
think I have made it sufficiently plain that I have not chosen
the Platonic philosophers undeservedly as the parties with
whom to discuss ; because the question we have just taken
up concerns the natural theology, — the question, namely,
whether sacred rites are to be performed to one God, or to
many, for the sake of the happiness which is to be after death.
I have specially chosen them because their juster thoughts
concerning the one God who made heaven and earth, have
made them illustrious among philosophers. This has given
them such superiority to all others in the judgment of pos-
terity, that, though Aristotle, the disciple of Plato, a man of
eminent abilities, inferior in eloquence to Plato, yet far superior
to many in that respect, had founded the Peripatetic sect, — so